Two Years ago I stumbled over the CD "Southern Journey - Harp of a thousand strings" and was totally blown away by the sheer beauty and power of this music, only next to the Bulgarian Women's choires IMO. About the same time they had an very interesting article in "No Depression". I found very informative sites on the net, but I couldn't locate any Shape-note singing in Germany, nor could I find a Sacred Harp Song-Book (Amazon sells one for 90 $, oh well...)
I was wondering if some of you attend Shape-note singings and how you experience them. Do you know of cheaper song-books that can be purchased?
I'm really interested, maybe I can found a singing-club in my Methodist church, since Wesley himself wrote some tunes.
It's pretty potent music, all right. I think I'll try and teach "Parting Friends" to my bluegrass group, to use as an a capella closer.
There's an interesting book called " The Sacred Harp, a Tradition and Its Music", by
Buell S. Cobb Jr , that I ordered five or six years ago from the University of Georgia Press, Athens, Ga 30602. There are about forty tunes in an appendix in the back of it, so you could start with that. I forget what the book cost, but it's a paperback.
They're in four parts, but I was in a choir in Montréal that sang some of them in the original three- part versions ( I think all the alto parts were added later), and I like them better that way, with all the bare fourths and fifths. The Cobb book gives an address where you can order the
current edition of the Sacred Harp songbook:
Sacred Harp Publishing Company
Box 185
Bremen, Georgia
30110
That may be the same one Amazon has, but it might be cheaper to order it direct.
Good Luck!
