My signal accomplishment for this day was an hour of singing Sacred Harp hymns along with the wonderful YouTube videos of All-Ireland Sacred Harp conventions of years past. Eventually, I’ll celebrate just one song, SH276 Bridgewater, which is such a favorite that it has on occasion triggered my slipping into a state of ecstasy.
(I can’t predict when I will slip into ecstasy, though some songs are likely triggers for it, but it’s clear when it happens, since I am obviously not attending to anything other than the song, which I do at full volume, with my eyes rolled up inside my head, This was at first terrifying for my fellow singers, but they have learned to accommodate to it. Indeed, for devout believers, this state is the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the ecstatic, truly a gift of God. I am not in fact a believer, but when I am possessed, I fully appreciate and respect the power of belief; I have been touched by something out of this world.)
SH traditions. A number of songs merely induce great emotion, in an assortment of flavors: celebration, the sadness of death (with the promise of life everlasting), shouting with joy, overcoming tribulation, the passing of the seasons, even carnal love (SH254 Rose of Sharon). It’s a surprisingly rich canvas, and it comes with a tradition of egalitarian community among the singers that is itself a powerful delight.
Also with its own complex musicological tradition, of four-part a cappella harmony with a characteristic raw and loud sound and a notation indicating the position of notes on the scale through their shape on the page, so that Sacred Harp singing is one form of shapenote music (SH uses 4 shapes — with the names FA SO LA and MI — for the 8 notes of an octave; a major scale goes FA SO LA FA SO LA MI FA). The shapes and their names are important, because the tradition at singings is to “sing the shapes” first, as a way of practicing the tune for your part before putting verses of text to it.
In an ordinary song, the melody line is sung by the tenor part, which is written as the third of the four parts. The bass, bottom line, largely supplies the anchor notes for chords. The treble, top line, supplies either a descant or a countermelody (I am a male treble, singing the part an octave below the women). The alto, second line, largely fills in chords, but sometimes gets its own melody; despite their mostly supportive role, SH altos are, famously, piercingly loud.
My voice rises again. All this background is necessary so that I can talk about my return to Sacred Harp singing at home two days ago, after a very long period of many sicknesses when I barely had a speaking voice, much less the ability to sing. But on Wednesday I thought I might see if I could sing at least a bit; over the years I’ve had other occasions when singing became possible after a long mute period. Typically, I then wept with delight; resurrection will do that.
On Wednesday, for the first time ever, I needed no throat clearing or warming up, just went into singing with full force, passionately, from the get-go. This astonished my helper Sita, who was startled that this enormous noise was emanating from me The way my helper León had been some years back, as reported in my 7/23/23 posting “A recovery landmark”:
Practiced singing from the Sacred Harp along with videos of the Ireland conventions — great stuff, beautifully produced — for half an hour this morning. (It’s pure pleasure and lung therapy, actually prescribed by my doctors.) With an amazing powerful voice that just astonished my helper León, who couldn’t believe this voice was coming from me, like I’d suddenly turned into a different person.
On Wednesday I sang like a madman for an hour; Sita (who is a devout Christian) wanted me to go on, but I thought I really needed to do other things with the day. In between songs I of course wept with pleasure.
I have now entertained my helper Isaac as well.
Bridgewater. Now about my singing today of SH276 Bridgewater, along with this YouTube video from the The Tenth Ireland Sacred Harp Convention (2020, in Cork) (videos of Bridgewater are also available from the Second Ireland Sacred Harp Convention (2012) and the Eighth Ireland Sacred Harp Convention (2018)). Text: Isaac Watts, 1719. Tune: Lewis Edson. 1782. The words:
[verse]
From all that dwell below the skies,
Let the Redeemer’s praise arise:[fuguing chorus, voices entering in the order: bass – tenor – treble – alto]
Let the Redeemer’s name be sung
Through ev’ry land by ev’ry tongue.
Singing the shapes: the verse for trebles:
so fa fa mi la fa so la
fa so la mi la so
and the chorus for trebles, with a thrilling descending run, and then two dotted-rhythm figures:
fa so so so fa so-fa-mi-la-so
so fa-so-la fa so-fa-mi so fa mi la
About Bridgewater on this blog: from my 12/28/12 posting “Praise singing”:
It’s a simple tune with a fine fuguing chorus giving the effect of banks of trumpets sounding praise … My tastes in shapenote music run strongly to angels and trumpets.
Memory loss. Now a dip into one of the little tragedies of my current daily life. The effect of recent illnesses of mine has been to wipe out my memory for how to perform some tasks (a wide range of skills with my computer, including how to post on my blog) and made me incapable of remembering things people tell me. If I don’t write things down and somehow make my notes easily available, I am deeply, humiliatingly, incompetent; one suite of memory has been, in effect, fried. Meanwhile, another whole class of abilities is completely untouched: I remember how to do all the complex routines of daily life automatically and unreflectingly, but to send a message or open a file for this blog, I have to find help.
These memories were fried once before, as a result of alcohol withdrawal syndrome (visibly manifested as the famous shakes), and I know they can be recovered through months of grinding repetition and rehearsal. I did it before and I can do it again (though I’m five years older, so it’s harder work). But many simple things are now grueling tasks, and I am constantly shamed by having to confess to things I don’t know, cannot remember, have failed to do, or take hours to accomplish painstakingly. I will gradually rebuild these lost abilities, but it will take hundreds, maybe thousands of conscious efforts; eventually the abilities will have become automatized, performed without thought to the steps involved.
Now, remember those activities of daily living, happily accomplished without thought even while I struggle to send an e-mail message. So it is with unimaginable delight that I tell you that though at the moment I can barely work out how call up those YouTube videos of Irish Sacred Harp conventions, once I get them, I can call on extravagantly complex abilities to sing my part, without any conscious planning. And for familiar tunes like Bridgewater — I’ve been singing for decades — I can do this without consulting the printed music. I can even sing the shapes this way (fa so so so fa so-fa-mi-la-so) at full speed, without thought. It’s absolutely wonderful and profoundly moving — the product of years of learning and practice, but now experienced as another sort of spiritual possession.
As a result, retrieving the ability to sing again has brought me great happiness in a time of grave disability. Let the Redeemer’s name be sung / Through ev’ry land by ev’ry tongue.
Come visit me, and I will sing for you.
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