Southern Spaces (Jun 2007)
Stormy Banks and Sweet Rivers: A Sacred Harp Geography
Abstract
This essay explores the history, geography, and contemporary practices of Sacred Harp—one form of a cappella, shape-note music—in the US South. The roots of Sacred Harp extend back to an eighteenth-century New England singing-school movement that spread the rudiments of choral music south and west with songs that drew upon folk melodies as well as original compositions by the earliest American composers. The Sacred Harp, a songbook compilation that gave its name to the major stream of shape note music, has remained in continuous use and revision since its publication in 1844. Sacred Harp singing took its strongest hold outside the southern plantation regions, especially in the piedmont and upcountry, encouraged by performance practices that represented a more egalitarian ethos. Although considered by most participants to be a form of worship, Sacred Harp exists independently of official denominational support and welcomes anyone interested in singing. This essay also considers the imagined geographies evoked by Sacred Harp through its lyrics and examines the tradition’s distinct configuration of sacred space.
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