<\/p>\n
279, “By the Waters of Babylon,”<\/strong> with words taken from Psalm 137, is attributed to William Billings in Singing the Living Tradition<\/em>. However, this tune does not appear in the definitive four volume Complete Works of William Billings<\/em>; there is a tune titled “Lamentation over Boston” with the words “By the rivers of Watertown,” a Revolutionary War era parody of Psalm 137, but the tune is utterly different. The second edition (1998) of Between the Lines: Sources for Singing the Living Tradition<\/em> makes a partial correction, stating “This tune is frequently attributed, erroneously, to William Billings.” On his 1971 album “American Pie,” pop singer Don McLean performs this tune almost precisely as given in Singing the Living Tradition<\/em>, and attributes it to William Billings; wherever McLean got his misinformation, no doubt this once popular album has spread the misinformation far and wide.<\/p>\n Where, then, does the tune come from? The Presbyterian Hymnal<\/em> (1990) has the same tune, and The Presbyterian Hymnal Companion<\/em>by LindaJo H. McKim (Westminster John Knox Press, 1993, p. 177), the equivalent to our Between the Lines<\/em>, attributes the tune as follows: “traditional Jewish melody.” Other hymnals give the same attribution, e.g., Psalms for All Seasons: A Complete Psalter for Worship<\/em> by John D. Witvliet, Martin Tel, and Joyce Borger (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Brazos Press, 2012, p. 899). It certainly sounds vaguely like a Jewish melody, and Psalm 137 would be an appropriate topic for a Jewish tune.<\/p>\n A very similar tune appeared in print in Philip Hayes’ The Muses Delight: Catches, Glees, Canzonets and Canons<\/em> (London: Harrison & Co., n.d. [c.1786], p. 105). The melodic line is very similar to the tune in Singing the Living Tradition<\/em>, with a few changes in the rhythm and melody, slightly different words (and more melisma) and, most importantly, the addition of a fourth part to the canon. The title page specifically states that the music in The Muses Delight<\/em> was “composed by Dr. Philip Hayes, Professor of Music in the University of Oxford.” Composers in those days sometimes borrowed earlier works, and further research may uncover an earlier publication. In the mean time, it seems safest to attribute the tune to “The Muses Delight<\/em>, Philip Hayes, altered.”<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 18, “Wondrous Love,”<\/strong> is attributed in Singing the Living Tradition<\/em> as follows: “Melody from The Southern Harmony<\/em>, 1835.” However, this tune was not in the 1835 edition of William Walker’s The Southern Harmony<\/em>; it was one of the added tunes found in the 1840 and later editions. Not only that, but William Walker attributes the tune to a specific composer. In the 1854 edition of The Southern Harmony<\/em>, the tune is attributed to “Christopher” (link to a scan of the relevant page<\/a>). Then in his 1867 Christian Harmony<\/em>, Walker identifies the composer as “James Christopher of Spartanburg, It is also worth noting that both versions of the tune in Singing the Living Tradition<\/em> have been altered from the tune as it appears in the The Southern Harmony<\/em> — and altered for the worse. The first version is a dreadful modern harmonization that makes the tune sound like bland generic twentieth century church music. The second harmonization retains the harmony of the Southern Harmony<\/em> version, but unnecessarily regularizes the rhythm. Both these versions lead musicians and congregations to sing this like a dirge. The original is wilder and more ecstatic, with its start-and-stop rhythm, parallel fifths, and chords that lack the third degree (and note that although the tune in The Southern Harmony<\/em> appears to be in a minor key, or Aeolian mode, it would have been sung in Dorian mode; at least Singing the Living Tradition<\/em> gets this right).<\/p>\n One final correction for this tune: while Singing the Living Tradition<\/em> gives the meter as 12,9,12,12,9, this is misleading; if you were going to write new poetry for this tune, you would write it in the following meter: 12,9,6,6,12,9.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 94, “Devotion,”<\/strong> is attributed to “A. C. Carden’s Missouri Harmony” in Singing the Living Tradition<\/em>, while Between the Lines<\/em> elaborates on that, giving credit to “Americk Hall.” This attribution confuses this with another tune. There were at least three tunes named “Devotion” circulating in the early 19th century American hymn tune repertoire: one by Daniel Read; one by Amariah Hall (surely “Americk” is a misreading of “Amariah”); and an otherwise unattributed tune in Alexander Johnson’s Tennessee Harmony<\/em> (1818). A quick glance shows that the tune in Singing the Living Tradition<\/em> is definitely not the tune by Amariah Hall, despite having the same name — this is an instance where Between the Lines<\/em> adds an error that was not in Singing the Living Tradition<\/em>.<\/p>\n So what is the correct attribution? A 2010 scholarly work by ethnomusicologist Warren Steele attributes the tune to Alexander Johnson’s Tennessee Harmony<\/em> (1818); this is the safest attribution.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 66, “Holy Manna”<\/strong> is attributed to the 1855 edition of William Walker’s The Southern Harmony<\/em>. In that tunebook, Walker attributes “Holy Manna” to “Baptist Harmony” (link to a scan of the relevant page in The Southern Harmony<\/em><\/a>). Marion J. Hatchett, in Companion to the New Harp of Columbia<\/em>, states: “The pentatonic tune Holy Manna was claimed as original in Columbian Harmony<\/em> (Cincinnati, 1825), a four shape-note tune book complied by William Moore…. The tune was revised somewhat by William Walker in his Southern Harmony<\/em>.”<\/p>\n So a possible brief attribution, for use on the sheet music, would be something like “William Moore, altered.” Then a companion book like Between the Lines<\/em> could add the additional information found in Hatchett.<\/p>\n ———<\/p>\n There are other errors in the attributions of tunes taken from 19th century American sources; suffice it to say that there is a robust scholarly literature in 19th century American hymn tunes, and it would be wise to refer to that literature rather than accepting the attribution given in whatever hymnal the editors borrow the tune from (for I suspect that’s mostly where the attributions in Singing the Living Tradition<\/em> come from).<\/p>\n Finally, why is it important to correct these errors?<\/p>\n First, it affects the way we think about singing and performing the tunes. We have learned a great deal from both the early music movement and from folklorists: musical practices change over time, and vary from place to place. Thus, knowing that “By the Waters of Babylon” comes from an 18th century Oxford professor of music, we will be less likely to sing it in the style of Jewish cantors, and perhaps less likely to sing it the way Don McLean recorded it, with the over-simplified rhythm and harmony. On the other hand, given that it came from a popular book, we might also think about singing it in the style of West Gallery music, i.e., more like a pub song than like a bel canto song.<\/p>\n Second, we have come to find out that we are more likely to give correct attributions to mainstream composers (whether they compose pop music or “classical” music), while we are less likely to correctly attribute music to composers who come from the margins. “Wondrous Love” didn’t just appear from nowhere, to be collected by William Walker into a tunebook; it was composed by a composer who was not trained in an elite institution, and who lived far from the urban elite composers of popular and classical music. The fact that we don’t bother to take the time to correctly identify non-elite composers tells us something about our musical blinders; the fact that we feel compelled to “correct” their rhythm and harmony tells us even more about ourselves and our prejudices.<\/p>\n Thus, if we look at where our tunes really come from, we discover that both sides in the congregational battles between “classical” music (which means 19th century Western concert music and “contemporary” music (which mostly means late twentieth century pop music) are ignoring the real diversity of sacred song that is available to us. The composed music from the rural South and Western frontier fits into neither the “classical” nor “contemporary” music formats. Nor do African American spirituals, or gospel music, or tunes from the Anglo-American or Hispanic folk traditions, or jazz, or 21st century classical music, or world music, etc. So correcting these errors may help us to remove our musical blinders, and discover whole new worlds of sacred song.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Music geeks, this post is for you. Jay Atkinson mentioned to me that he is tracking down errors in the attribution of some of the readings in the 1993 Unitarian Universalist hymnal, Singing the Living Tradition, and I told him that there are also misattributions in the music. He asked me to give him some … Continue reading “Another look at sources of sacred song”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51,132],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-musical-arts","category-practical-religion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2409"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2409\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2428,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2409\/revisions\/2428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/PhilipHayesMusesDelight105t.png\" "\\"Philip")
<\/a><\/p>\nN.C.<\/del> S.C.”<\/p>\n