Not only was I lucky enough to have a work conference in Nashville last week adjoin the Lookout Mountain convention on one side, and the Young People's, Lacy Memorial, and Shoal Creek singings on the other, but due a singing room being required for an election on Tuesday night, Fort Payne, Alabama's regular monthly singing was moved to Friday evening, allowing me (and Jessica) to catch a fourth singing in as many days.
Among the many interesting aspects of this singing (by the way, Darlene Dalton, formerly of Las Vegas and frequent Golden Gate and All-Cal attendee, sends her love our way), I particularly want to draw attention to the fact that in this singing we sung not from the normal 1991 Denson revision, but the White book - which has, unsurprisingly, a white cover, but which gained it's name from its compiler, J. L. White. Originally published in 1911, it has several gospel tunes, but on the whole it is the most traditional of the turn of the century revisions (Cooper, White, and James); for example, well over half the tunes - many familiar to us from the 1991 Denson revision, have only three parts.
The book has recently been beautifully retypeset, and republished last year. I was given one as a gift, and will bring it to upcoming singings; I'm curious to see if/ how the harmonies compare between that book and our Densons. I'll also bring a James book (also from 1911), which as I understand is between White and Cooper with respect to gospel-ization. (Will, please correct me if I'm wrong.) And while I'm on it, I seem to have compiled a surprisingly large tunebook collection; if anyone is ever interested in borrowing a Colored Sacred Harp or Southern or Missouri Harmony, or... let me know; I'm more than happy to lend them out.
Don't worry; the Denson book isn't going out of style; in fact we just bought 3 new boxes of loaners, since we're selling so many, and in anticipation of the upcoming All-Cal.
3 comments:
Hi Mark: I'm a growing-more-courageous newcomer to Monday nights and would love more info about your talk about migrating thirds and such! Thanks!
If anyone wants a newly typeset copy of the Harmonia Sacra (the seven shape book I've brought in the past), please let me know before I leave on Monday morning. They are $30 a piece.
I was a bit disappointed while Mark and I were singing from the White Book to learn that *no* new minor key songs had been added to the 1911 revision. I think we uncovered a couple of major key gems, but ... what a loss!
As far as other books go, I do like the songs in Missouri Harmony, but find the layout to be problematic and the typesetting to be overly generous in terms of white space on the pages. I kind of like shapenote tunebooks that are a little difficult to read, as they open up more chance of happy accidents from misreading. Also, I probably have an outrageous nostalgic streak.
Other books worth having (particularly if you want to sing stuff with Mark): Norumbega Harmony, Northern Harmony and The Good Old Songs (7 shapes).
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