Re: Old Indian Hymn

[Karen W]

Thank you everyone! I now understand what I'm seeing. 

--Karen Willard

[Karen Willard]

Thank you, Gabe

Karen

On Tue, May 14, 2024 at 2:22 PM Gabriel Kastelle <gabrie...@gmail.com> wrote:

Greetings, Fasola friends --

Old Indian Hymn is truly "in the air" these days!

I've just completed an edutainment video about the tune for an instrumental ensemble performing a new arrangement (not mine!) of the tune in a concert this coming Sunday, in the Narragansett peoples' homeland now called Rhode Island--

--I hope I can share link to that soon.

I love the tune, and I think it's perfect as it lies on the page in Commuck (1845).

My feelings match Ginnie's--and Warren Steel's analysis I see in separated thread--about the mixed modal-ness and floating center of it all, and how unlike most other shape note style it all is (because it really is old and Indian, rugged and modal and beautiful, right??).

I can only imagine--I've examined Thos. Hastings diaries covering the time when he worked on Commuck's Indian Melodies, and Hastings is VERY terse about it all, ZERO musical details are given, nor hints of his thinking nor any idea of what he actually did or didn't do to which tunes--but I imagine that this is one of the tunes in Commuck that befuddled Hastings so much that he just left it alone as Commuck wrote it, washed his hands of it, "on your head be it", or some such. I think the tune MONTAUK with its impossible unison opening is another one of those--it utterly defies Hastings' own writings and advices to choirs. MOOANAM as well--so bizarre and spectacular. So, in general, as Ginnie described, it is hard to tell where Commuck ends and where Hastings begins, if at all. But for all the details I and others have pointed out, I personally feel that OLD INDIAN HYMN is really a Commuck tune just as Commuck intended, so far as harmonization and all: I mean, I also really believe almost all the specific detail in Commuck's amazing footnote to the tune, including that the most main melody in Lead or Tenor predates Commuck by generations--a century and a half probably, maybe more?

Interestingly, Commuck's first copyright notices in 1843 for his tunebook were for the title "The Indian Harmonist", suggesting that he was comfortable with his own harmonizations, and making a bit mysterious the choices of the New York City publishers to change the 1845 publication title to "Indian Melodies" and to bring in, of all people, that venomous hater of shape notes Thomas Hastings to be credited "harmonized by..."!!

Thus, it remains a very astute question Karen, thank you, to ask about tunes in Commuck:

do I like these details?

is this how it feels right to sing?

did Commuck do this?

did Hastings do this?

Well-informed, well-wishing opinions vary. I know for example that James Page, who did stellar research and (re-)settings of Commuck tunes as far back as the late 1980s, WAY ahead of the curve, feels adamantly that OLD INDIAN HYMN was heavily handled and totally messed up by Hastings, and it is one of the tunes that he has tried to "restore" to shape note style.

These questions and varied responses and singing experiments in the living hollow square are wonderful, I believe, to breathe new life into these varied tunes from the Brothertown Indian singing tradition.

I have lots of other research and arguments and strong-gut-feelings with incomplete arguments that repertoire and hymnody and the singing of the Brothertown, and of the peoples who became Brothertown, ***as well as important extra-musical cultural practices in our singing tradition: say, all day sing with dinner on the grounds (Old Brothertown, NY, 1785) and "Memorial [Lesson]" (all Northeast Indians always everywhere)*** really are an important source of continuing practice in all our shape note and hollow square singings today.

I love that this discussion is happening.

Thank you all.

Some of my other faves in Commuck:

MOOANAM

UNCAS

SHOSHONE

SUSQUEHANNAH

MUNSEE

MONTAUK

MISSIONARY, or WHITE PILGRIM (original source of 341 THE LONE PILGRIM in Denson '91--Commuck also predates first Wm. Walker theft in 3rd edition of Southern Harmony, sometimes wrongly claimed as earlier publisher than Commuck through confusion with Walker's 1832 first edition) (Steel and Hulan Makers of the Sacred Harp does a great job of setting the record straight--quite different from the fanciful footnote added in 20th century Sacred Harp editions--about the actual titular missionary in white suit related to history of the hymn text, which I have handled as a broadside pinned in to an 1840s Methodist words-only hymnal owned by a Brothertown lady singer in Wisconsin, a neighbor of Thomas Commuck!) (thanks again to the Oneida of Wisconsin History Dep't and Brothertown Indian Nation for letting me in to the archives of "The Brothertown Collection" in that summer of 2017!!)

SENECA

BROTHERTOWN

but, please, find your own! Sing! Sing Commuck!

here's link to Louis Benson's copy of "Patent Note" original:

https://musopen.org/music/34336-indian-melodies/

Reprints of a modern (2018) "Selection . . ." from Commuck's tunebook remain available from Calumet and Cross Heritage Society, with  which I have the honor of serving as Vice President [beginning of disclosures]. These Selections include about a third or two fifths of the music of the 1845 Commuck tunebook (which contained 120 tunes in 108 pages of music!), chosen to tell Brothertown history and to share some musical faves and questions; as well as Commuck's original and awesome introduction; as well as special new writings introducing the whole volume and each chapter written by today's members of the Brothertown I.N.; and also Angharad Davis' one page intro to the hollow square, settling for all time that the altos are the real center, as in a "kaleidoscope" :-); and my own Afterword pointing out some Brothertown and shape note connections. One way that the modern Selection . . . and this discussion are in dialogue with singers and with each other is that on facing pages, both the Commuck(/Hastings?) original and the James Page restored-to-shape-note-style settings of the tune WABASH are given. Very persuasive to me--I agree heartily with Jim Page about his feelings and work on WABASH. Great discussion and experiment-opener for the rest of the tunebook!

Spiral binding, opens well for singing, $ 7 each plus shipping; $ 5 each for "singer's batches" of 10 or more plus shipping.

I should conclude full disclosures with confession that it's my lame fault that our (Calumet and Cross) website hasn't really simplified current ordering of these Commuck "Selection . . . "s, so for now most expeditious ordering may be through the tedious bottleneck of yours truly, best found for these purposes please at vice-pr...@calumetandcross.org, &/or 215-287-2851 (Pacific time--mercy!), talk, txt msg, or voice mail all good. 

THANK YOU all for your interest and again for this discussion.

LA !

-- A. Gabriel Kastelle --

Eugene, OR -- Kalapuya Ilihi (unceded homeland of Kalapuyan peoples)

On Sun, May 12, 2024 at 6:28 PM Karen W <kayren....@gmail.com> wrote:

Thank you everyone! I now understand what I'm seeing. 

--Karen Willard

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[Gabriel Kastelle]

Thank you everyone! I now understand what I'm seeing. 

--Karen Willard

--

[Gabriel Kastelle]

Here's that video link I mentioned earlier--

--my pre-concert talk via video to introduce Old Indian Hymn to audiences before they hear a new arrangement for wind ensemble of Old Indian Hymn--

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kghMLeZPFRM

:-)

Those of you who are near enough to Woonsocket, RI, may enjoy the premiere concert this Sunday afternoon, May 19, 2024,

by the Rhode Island Wind Ensemble:

https://www.riwe.org/schedule20232024/2024/5/19/concert-8

In addition to the new Old Indian Hymn arrangement, the program includes music by Stockbridge-Munsee composer Brent Michael Davids [with soprano voice soloist Victoria Hazard (Narragansett)] alongside other contrasting works maybe more of the Western concert mainstream. :-)

https://www.riwe.org/

LA !

-- A. Gabriel K. --