RE: [fasola-discussions] Sacred Harp Alto

[mu...@olemiss.edu]

On Saturday 07/10/2010 at 6:07 am, Anne E. Missavage M.D. wrote:

Alabama is a fine demonstration of a ridiculous alto range. I have practiced a lot to be able to manage this because it is so "rangey" as they would say on American Idol. It has several E's above high C and one G above high C. The altos will be not so loud (because we lose power above high C) until we hit the last phrase "For Jesus di-ed for me," when we get very loud again as we go back to an E.

Indeed, the "alto" part of ALABAMA was, if I'm not mistaken, composed by William
Walker and labeled "second treble."  Other second trebles are PISGAH (originally
the treble to a different arrangement of the same melody) and SAINTS BOUND FOR
HEAVEN. 
Some strange looking altos are intended to be sung in a different octave than written.
Old "counter" parts were often written with the "counter cliff" (C3) to keep the notes on the
staff.  As this cliff fell out of use, two alternatives were available: 1) write the counter
in the upper range of the treble cliff, like a tenor part, as in some printings of NEW
JERUSALEM or CONCORD.  Sing an octave lower than written--middle C is on the
third space, which is pretty good.  2) another method, almost unique to the Sacred Harp,
is to write the counter on the bass cliff--here, singers must sing an octave above what's
written, and middle C is on the second space, also reasonable.  Since most fasola
singers rely on the note shapes, why was it necessary to give up all three methods and
subject our alto singers to excessive ledger lines below the staff?

 --Warren

[mu...@olemiss.edu]

ALABAMA has always fascinated me for a number of  reasons. It appears with four parts in the 1844 first edition of The Sacred Harp and the part on the second staff is identical to that in the 1991 edition. And both of these parts are identical to parts on the second staff of ALABAMA from the 1835 Southern Harmony (116). So this part in the form we have it today goes back at least to 1835. The interesting thing is that William Walker printed the following words just above the beginning of the second staff  of ALABAMA in the Southern Harmony: "Counter by William Walker." So it would seem without question that Walker thought of it as a counter part!

    My mistake! in recalling that Walker called it "second treble." 
I agree with Terre and others that the counter should not be doubled
above or below.  Walker seems to be suggesting that "grave"
women may be added to the traditional "lofty" young men, but
at the same pitch.
  -W

[mu...@olemiss.edu]

Judy dixit

Again, correct me if I'm wrong again, but I had understood "counter" to be short for "countertenor", the very highest male voice.  "Alto" also means high.  So apparently women with lowdown voices were a unknown commodity?  At any rate, looks like they took it down an octave, and finally took it over.  (I'm sure I need additional instruction on this!!)

Contratenor was originally a voice part that shared the tenor range, but crossed it
above and below, often extending from our alto to baritone!  As early as 1480,
composers began to split this ungainly jumpy part into "contratenor bassus"
"Low contratenor" or "bassus" for short, and "contratenor altus" "High contratenor"
or "altus" for short.  Contratenor, counter, alto, or whatever you want to call it,
implied high adult men's voices,. as it did in Billings's time.  Not high soprano!
Alto parts are routinely sung by adult males and women together in the UK,
by adult males alone in many cathedral choirs, and by adolescent boys in some
continental male choirs. 
 

 

And it's true, the alto part Billings wrote for his "Washington" (Bear Creek) is really quite genteel when compared with the rambunctious, freewheeling alto that G.B. Daniel replaced it with.

I beg to differ, especially the "chair-----iots riff!
W

[Wade Kotter]

Warren:

I was surprised as well by the Counter designation. Are you saying that Walker's counter on ALABAMA should be sung as written by altos and/or some female trebles? What David Music seems to suggest by writing it an octave lower in his book is that it should be sung by altos (and "lofty" young men [I love that term!]) an octave lower than it's written.

Wade

---

From: "mu...@olemiss.edu" <mu...@olemiss.edu>
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Sent: Mon, July 12, 2010 11:24:10 AM
Subject: Re: [fasola-discussions] Sacred Harp Alto

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[HENRY JOHNSON]

In my lessons at camp and elsewhere on three-part songs, I have
pointed out that B. F. White and his associates generally preferred
three-part harmony. This explains why the four 19th century editions of
the Harp contained around 70% three-liners. These composers were not
opposed to the alto part per se, and some of them wrote four-part songs.
See 34t, 398, 434, 460 for examples. J. P. Reese added the alto to
We'll Soon Be There, p.97, in 1869. I hope that the next revision
committee will see fit to give credit to the composers of the added alto
lines, and to correct the discords introduced into the music by some of
those added altos. In The Methodist Harmonist, a tunebook first
published in four-shape notation in 1833, the alto, or counter-tenor,
the highest part, is placed on the top staff and is assigned to the
highest male voices. In some songs, the air and the harmony parts are
identical to those in the SH, except that the alto is placed one octave
higher in the Harmonist. One example is Devotion, p. 45, which is
Pleyel's Hymn, p. 143. Henry

[j frankel]

This was supposed to have gone out to the whole group earlier but apparently did not.  Gotta get used to new mailer & all.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: j frankel <ghos...@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, Jul 13, 2010 at 4:09 PM
Subject: Re: [fasola-discussions] Sacred Harp Alto

To: mu...@olemiss.edu

I don't know southern altos who sing the whole rangey-ness of it.

 

Maybe some will log on & say "but I do" & that's alright with me too, of course of course; I'm just reporting what I've heard from where I sit in the alto section.

 

I like to think I'm copying what I do on Alabama from what I've heard, like, *in* Alabama.

 

What I do is, when I get to the high part, drop it down a musical-3rd & retain the interval relationship between the following notes from there to the end.

 

You can also start the whole song so low that as an alto you can do the rangey stuff as written.  The problem with it is, as usual, not the range required, but where you start.  Nobody wants to sing high notes into where their voice is weaker, & if you start where altos normally start, this song would make you do that.

 

But, like I've said, what I've heard is people starting in a normal place, then dropping that high note & everything after it down a musical 3rd.

 

 

Up north here I do of course hear a whole lot of altos starting in a normal alto place & singing the "up" part right up there.  More, uh, power to them; they'll need it!

 

I personally can sing very high, & can also sing very loudly, but can't generally sing Sacred-Harp-alto-loudly, which is as we all know a cut above most other "loudly"s while singing very high.  So I prefer not to do that.

[Donna Abrahams]

This is a very intriguing solution, and I'm going to give it a shot in the safety of my abode (singing along with a recording). The only other solution I've tried -- when my voice is too weak to try to sing everything as written, which is now most of the time -- is to (for lack of a better term) "flip octaves" when things become untenably high. Of course, the kicker with this tune is that the altos are under obligation to come in fresh and perky, with their part as written, at the very end of the tune.
 
To all who participated in this thread, big thanks for all the insights re: the alto line and its natural history. Good stuff!
 
Donna Abrahams
no longer a "power alto," but still an alto
in Maryland
 

---

Date: Sat, 24 Jul 2010 08:12:52 -0400
Subject: Fwd: [fasola-discussions] Sacred Harp Alto
From: ghos...@gmail.com
To: fasola-di...@googlegroups.com

[Lucas Gonze]

This conversation has me intrigued with singing alto-less tunes, three parts only.

Can I just call any old tune and ask the altos to pick tenor or soprano?

[Karen Willard]

Well now Lucas...

You understand the dangers in telling altos to do anything at all, at all?  

You go right ahead and call whatever song you wish when it's your turn in the square.  Don't turn around and look at us unless you'll be leading us in on a fuging tune in which case get it over with quickly and get back to staring at the tenors. We'll sing -- either an alto part we know or the tenor or the bass in our own range -- or not.  It's just better not to think of what we're doing behind your back.

Karen Willard

[Ted Johnson]

Wise words. Don't mess with the altos. I'm married to one. Just be damn glad they're there!

-Ted J.

---

From: Karen Willard <karenw...@me.com>
To: lucas...@gmail.com
Cc: fasola-di...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Sat, July 24, 2010 1:17:19 PM

Subject: Re: [fasola-discussions] Sacred Harp Alto

[eml...@yahoo.com]

I hate it when people do that. Its sort of discriminating in a way. I don't like it when altos sound like they are screaming either buy leaving out any part is an injustice to the composer.

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From: Lucas Gonze <lucas...@gmail.com>

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Date: Sat, 24 Jul 2010 11:07:29 -0700

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[Lucas Gonze]

Yeah, I could see it coming across as putting down the altos.

But do people do that?  Sounds like you've seen this before.

[mickve...@aol.com]

I think the wires are getting a little crossed here - surely the thread was originally referring to those tunes in The Sacred Harp which only have three parts - I don't imagine anyone would actually ask the altos to leave out the alto part if there was one, would they?

Mick Verrier

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From: Lucas Gonze <lucas...@gmail.com>

Sender: fasola-di...@googlegroups.com

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[Wade Kotter]

Lucas:

The only time I've seen (heard?) this done was during a couple of instruction sessions at Camp Fasola that were focused on three-line tunes. We sang both the three-line and four-line versions in order to see how they differ. But I think it would be a major mistake to do this at a singing.

Wade Kotter
South Ogden, UT

---

From: Lucas Gonze <lucas...@gmail.com>

To: powe...@msn.com
Cc: ghos...@gmail.com; fasola-di...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Sat, July 24, 2010 12:07:29 PM

Subject: Re: [fasola-discussions] Sacred Harp Alto

[j frankel]

If you want to sing alto-less tunes, pick 3-parters.  There are a few in Denson.  Or come to Harrod's Creek near Louisville which uses Southern Harmony, a book with plenty 3-parters, as one of the 3 books at the convention.  Or find another convention which sings from a book with lots of 3-parters & pick the 3-parters.

 

Please don't tell the altos not to sing alto.  If we wanted to sing tenor or treble, we'd be singing tenor or treble.  There are a few conventions where because of local pitching habits, or other reasons, the alto isn't comfortable for me & I do sing tenor.  Sometimes low, sometimes high.  But don't drop the alto part out of a song which was, in some cases, rewritten to fit an alto part in, & which in other cases "came that way" right from the original composition.  As an aside, since this is what I feel you & another in the thread may be getting at, if you hear an alto singing tenor or treble "like an alto", meaning it still sounds kind of piercing to you even though we are recognizablly singing a different part, completely in the different-part's range, then my advice is "live with it".  There are a lot of women who sing alto in this world (out in the non-Sacred-Harp-world, too!).

[Annie Grieshop]

In re avoiding high notes (in any part!) by singing a third lower:

 

I don't know about anybody else, but I'm bothered by the solution for two reasons:  improvisation and gospel singing. 

 

Dropping a third and singing parallel is going to change the sound to the singing (possibly giving it a "gospel" flavor).  Yes, of course, it's very possible that you'll actually be singing the notes of another voice's line, given the relationship between the alto line and other parts -- but in essence, you're improvising by deciding which tones to sing.  And it seems odd to improvise within a tradition that relies so heavily on written music (to the extent of inventing a special notation, no less).  

 

Singing from "Lloyd's"?  Sure, improvise all you want.  But not from the Sacred Harp. 

 

Please just drop down an octave and sing what's written.  Or write a different part and see if gains acceptance.

 

Annie

who has to switch octaves constantly to sing alto.... ;->

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[amity]

I understand that many if not most of the older music in the Sacred Harp was originally composed without an alto.  Also remember someone saying that when alto was introduced, it was peopled by a very few women who sat at the far end of the tenor bench, between tenor and bass.  I like the alto sound, but also enjoy the much starker sound of pieces that do not have an alto, myself.  And I am an alto (well, sort of.  Would rather be a bass!)

The alto is a fun, relatively easy, and very popular part to sing, but I am not sure we are doing the music justice by having it become such a predominant part?  It does modernize the music, and meanwhile treble seems to be quite neglected.  I know this is largely a matter of range, but many women who sing alto could also sing treble, and the music sounds very strange with so little treble. 

 

Terre Schill

[P Pate]

Greetings Lucas,

 

You offer an interesting idea on singing 3 part, alto-less, pieces.

 

May I encourage you to first call "3 part even though 4 parts are printed" songs at your local singing. Find out if your friends think it's amusing or a good idea. See if altos who know and hopefully like you will still speak to you after such a request.

 

I would give some serious thought before calling such a thing at a convention or larger singing. Please consider the social implications of the following statement - "Well I know what our commonly agreed to book says, but you altos just hush up now; I don't want to hear you sing." Probably not the first choice of ways to open a campaign to make friends. You might even get some altos who sing even louder in response to such a social faux-pas.

Several years ago this list had a conversation about a singing community in which the influential singers had published the decree that alto wasn't permitted at their singing. What the book had printed didn't matter, alto was not historic and therefore would not be done.  It was not well received. In fact, the level of disagreement helped encourage the moderation of the fasola lists.

 

So my recommendation on telling the altos to "just be quiet now, hear?" is three fold:

1. Write some three part songs and see the reaction to your compositiion.

2. Search thru the older editions and find a three part version of some song you want to hear. Make copies and offer the class the opportunity to sing from a different sheet of paper. Much more positive to offer a smaller song than to tell an entire section to "hush up".

3. Don't.

 

All the best, Peter

 

P.S. I just read Karen Willard's response. She was being incredibly polite in response to your non-optimal proposal.  :-)

From: Lucas Gonze <lucas...@gmail.com>
To: powe...@msn.com
Cc: ghos...@gmail.com; fasola-di...@googlegroups.com

[eml...@yahoo.com]

You are right. So many alto singers these days. Why is there not more emphasis on singing tenor, especially as a beginner? Womens' voices are hardly ever heard singing tenor.

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---

From: "amity" <amit...@peoplepc.com>

Date: Sat, 24 Jul 2010 14:42:31 -0500

To: <eml...@yahoo.com>; discussions<fasola-di...@googlegroups.com>

[Lucas Gonze]

What a hornets nest.

I have the greatest respect for altos.  Altos are the best!  Mix altos and coke together and you get explosions!  Actually, that's Mentos.  But I still love altos. 

My thought is about the difference in the music caused by altering the original harmonies.  I am interested in 19th century American music overall, not just in the context of Sacred Harp, so hearing the tunes as they were originally voiced is the idea.  It might be striking, or it might just be thin.

It would be more interesting to do a tune both ways, now that I think about it -- find something that was reharmonized and try the before and after versions.

[Karen Willard]

Your initial assumption is unlikely to hold:  "altering the original harmonies".  

Many (most?) of the 3-part songs in the 19th century Sacred Harp have earlier appearances in print with 4-part harmony, as has been documented often in this list.  The number of 3-part songs in our book -- which is what you'll be using at a Sacred Harp singing -- that have a known composer who deliberately chose to compose only 3 part harmony as an aesthetic choice is really quite small.  

Karen Willard

On Jul 24, 2010, at 03:38 PM, Lucas Gonze <lucas...@gmail.com> wrote:

What a hornets nest.

I have the greatest respect for altos.  Altos are the best!  Mix altos and coke together and you get explosions!  Actually, that's Mentos.  But I still love altos. 

My thought is about the difference in the music caused by altering the original harmonies.  I am interested in 19th century American music overall, not just in the context of Sacred Harp, so hearing the tunes as they were originally voiced is the idea. ...

[Anne E. Missavage M.D.]

Once I wrote an alto part for one of Tom Malone's Christian Harmony (Ingalls Book). We did it with the three parts as written and then with the added alto. I think it sounded better with the alto, although that is probably a biased alto opinion.

 

Anne E. Missavage M.D.
ae.mis...@prodigy.net

---

From: Lucas Gonze <lucas...@gmail.com>

To: ghos...@gmail.com
Cc: fasola-di...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Sat, July 24, 2010 6:38:46 PM

[Judy Hauff]

Anybody who really wanted to hear, in their original form. all the Sacred Harp tunes that were composed in just three parts, would have to arrange the singing very carefully . . . I guess it would first have to be advertised as a special singing just to hear the sound of those original three-part tunes; it couldn't supplant any regularly scheduled 4-part singing, and all women who usually sing the alto part would be welcome to attend, with the understanding that the point of the exercise would be just to hear the harmonies without the sweetening that was added later. 

I really do understand the problem of not being able to reach the middle-to-higher notes in the tenor or treble ranges, though;  which means alto or nothing.  Of course, new altos could be written to all the tunes so that all their notes would double one of the other parts . . .

 

Judy.

---

From: Lucas Gonze <lucas...@gmail.com>
To: ghos...@gmail.com
Cc: fasola-di...@googlegroups.com

Sent: Sat, July 24, 2010 5:38:46 PM

[Bob Borcherding]

I rather look on this music (and pretty much ANY musical form) in a
manner similar to the recommendations from our High School English
teachers, wherein we were told that if we see symbolism in a poem,
story, etc., then it is there.

Similarly, if you see symbolism, etc., in a piece of music, then it
is there, for you. But one must realize that there is a long
tradition by which the music is understood, which is good to repect.
If one doesn't respect that tradition, those in the tradition will
(mostly) gently ignore you.

There is so much more to music than the notes on a printed page. It
would be doing a disservice to both the composer and participant/
performer to strictly adhere to some predefined regimen, that may or
may not actually have anything to do with making music.

Like it or not, each section of the square has their own traditions
and affectations that they bring to the singing, with some regional
aspects. While in the heat of battle, few of us actually understand
or even notice what is happening in detail in other parts, other than
knowing that there is combined effect that we know and love.

There are accomplished singers whose actions sometimes rub me the
wrong way, and I am sure that others can say that about me, but I
believe that two words can be used to summarize what is key to this
tradition.

Joy.
Forgiveness.

Until the volume of the altos started affecting my hearing too much
at big singings, I would always plant myself on the left of the bass
section, because I wanted to be awash with alto.

Bob Borcherding

[Carlton, David L]

Lucas,

 

                Pardon me for being late to this one, but I’d also point out that it might be “sub-optimal” to refer to the treble line as “soprano.”  Quite a few of us who sing it are*not,* er, sopranos.  Yours, David Carlton.

 

From: fasola-di...@googlegroups.com [mailto:fasola-di...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Lucas Gonze

Sent: Saturday, July 24, 2010 1:07 PM
To: powe...@msn.com
Cc: ghos...@gmail.com; fasola-di...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: [fasola-discussions] Sacred Harp Alto

 

This conversation has me intrigued with singing alto-less tunes, three parts only.

[Lucas Gonze]

Fascinating!

Any idea whether the 3-part arrangements were created by simply
subtracting the 4th part, or were originally for three parts? That
would affect the voicings quite a lot.

[Lucas Gonze]

That's a fun idea, Judy.  I like it.

[Lucas Gonze]

My apologies.

[Robert Vaughn]

I would add to this list any singings from the J. L. White edition of the Sacred Harp, which includes the 1870 edition substantially as it was -- with lots of 3-part songs. Robert Vaughn Mount Enterprise, TX http://baptistsearch.blogspot.com/ Ask for the old paths, where is the good way. http://mtcarmelbaptist.blogspot.com/ For ask now of the days that are past... http://oldredland.blogspot.com/ Give ear, all ye inhabitants of the land. --- On Sat, 7/24/10, j frankel <ghos...@gmail.com> wrote:

[rgoodell]

Not  to introduce another distraction to this very animated discussion, but "soprano"  ends in "o", not "a", the traditonal feminine ending.  So why  would males object to being called a soprano?
In fact, my Webster's has no mention of gender in the entries for either soprano or treble.
Sing on,
Bobbie Goodell
Maine, where we're just past the middle of a 3-day singing event dampened a bit by rain, but you'd never know it by the enthusiastic singing from a great class of folks from Alabama to Vermont and places inbetween.

Carlton, David L wrote:

--

[Carlton, David L]

Bobbie,

 

                I don’t “object” to being called a soprano—it just ain’t correct.  I’m simply not; in terms of range, I’m a tenor.   Few post-pubescent males sing in the soprano range, though some do.  Typically the treble line is sung by both men and women, but they sing an octave apart—which gives Sacred Harp part of its distinctive sound.  I think, for that reason, that it’s important to stress that there’s a difference between the treble line and “soprano.”  Yours, David.

[HENRY JOHNSON]

The Cooper Revision (1902) and the James Revision (1911) were the first
Sacred Harps in which four-part arrangements predominated. In the
Cooper book the percentage was 100; in the James book, about 87. In
each book, alto parts were added to well over 300 songs. In a large
majority of cases, the songs involved had never before been printed with
an alto. All of the songs by White and King, and most of the songs by
Dumas, Breedlove, Massengale, the Reeses, the Lancasters, et. al., were
originally "three-liners." The 1991 edition has 23 three-part songs.
When called, they should be sung as written, as should the four-part
songs. It seems to me that a singing is not the proper place for adding
or subtracting parts, or for making changes to parts "on the fly."
Henry

[Wade Kotter]

In support of David's comment, I would like to report the results of my search in Grove Music Online, several music dictionaries, and a couple of Italian-English dictionaries. The Italian word soprano comes from the Latin superius and in music was originally used in the 16th century as a designation for the highest vocal range of the human voice. From that time period on, it has also been used to designate singing voices with the highest vocal range, including women, "boy sopranos" (in England, more correctly called trebles), and some men (castratos, plural castrati) who had been castrated, leaving their larynxes in a preadolescent state. I say some because many castrati had a mezzo-soprano or alto range instead of a soprano range. Today there are a small number of male falsettoists who sing in the soprano range and I've heard them called male sopranos or simply sopranists in order to distinguish them from male falsettoists who sing in the alto range. With this in mind, males in the shape-note tradition who sing treble an octave lower than it's written are not singing in the soprano range and thus should not be called sopranos. It's also incorrect to call it the soprano line or soprano part because it represents two pitch ranges and not simply the highest pitch range. As a male treble, my vocal range is high tenor and I sing the treble part an octave lower than written. In that sense, I feel sort of like a transposing instrument. :-) Anyway, if someone were to call me a soprano or tell me I sing the soprano line, I wouldn't be offended, but I would take pains to point out that they are incorrect. This is why I also prefer the term "lead" instead of tenor for the melody line in the shape-note tradition because "lead" doesn't incorrectly imply that all people in the section are singing in the tenor range.

Wade Kotter
South Ogden, UT

---

From: "Carlton, David L" <david....@Vanderbilt.Edu>
To: rgoodell <ar...@roadrunner.com>
Cc: "fasola-di...@googlegroups.com" <fasola-di...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Sun, July 25, 2010 3:21:26 PM

Subject: RE: [fasola-discussions] Sacred Harp Alto

[Robert Richmond]

In the New Harp of Columbia ("Old Harp") tradition, we almost
universally refer to the first and third lines as "treble" and "lead"
(rimes with bead, not with dead, obviously). I don't think the terms
"soprano" and "tenor" should be used in shape note music at all.

My wife and I sing treble together, with me singing an octave below
her. Since I (surprisingly enough) remain a high tenor at the age of
71, and my wife (69 tomorrow) is a rather low soprano, she actually
has more trouble with pitching than I do.

If there's such a thing as reincarnation, I've already applied to be
able to sing bass next time round! As any man should be able to do, I
sing bass when there just aren't enough basses (or when David's
Lamentation is called), but I have no power in my voice there.

Bob Richmond
Knoxville TN
**********************************************************

[figura]

Was there ever a time when Sacred Harp books had no four-part songs at all ?
Was there ever a time that the class sat in three sections, rather than in
four ?

Paul Figura
Missouri

[Bonita Davis]

Paul   As far as Sacred Harp, it's my understanding there were at least some four part songs in the original printing and in the subsequent reprintings. If you are referring to Sacred Harp in the generic sense, I'm not certain but I believe the answer would still be "no." As Henry Johnson pointed it at Camp and in this thread, the early New England composers (included my ancestor, Daniel Belknap) wrote more 4 part songs than three.   When it comes to where the altos sat when three part songs predominated in the Sacred Harp...I have heard at several Camps and other singings that it is possible the Hollow Square was a Hollow Triangle and that the countras (sp? - I always get this wrong, my apologies) may have been seated behind the Treble section. At one discussion one of the altos pointed out a triangle would make it easier for us to hear the announcements, memorial lessons, etc., as most people have a tendency to face the Tenor bench as when leading. When I spoke with Henry Johnson after his class at Camp this year, I thanked him for standing just slightly behind the point here the between the Treble and Alto sections . By doing this, and by projecting while he spoke, the Altos were able to here him. It was wonderful. We didn't have to ask him to speak up once! :) --- On Sun, 7/25/10, figura <fig...@mindspring.com> wrote:

[Wade Kotter]

Paul:

All editions of the Sacred Harp have included four-part songs, but until the early 20th century, three-part songs predominated, making up over 70% of the total in each of the four (1844, 1850, 1859 & 1860) 19th century editions. If by Sacred Harp books you mean four-shape books in general, the only four-shape books I've examined that include ONLY three-songs are the 1842 and 1847 editions of Joseph Funk's "A Compilation of Genuine Church Music." I suspect this may also be true of the earlier editions of this Mennonite songbook, which I have not seen. Whether this reflects Funk's personal preference or tells us something more general about Mennonite singing I can't say. As to the origin of sitting arrangements, the evidence of which I'm aware is very limited. I think the earliest pictorial representation we have of seating arrangements is the engraving by Paul Revere included in William Billing's "The New England Psalm Singer" (Boston, 1770):

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/images/s24p1.jpg

Notice that this engraving of a "singing party" shows seven men seated at a round table with tune books on the table in front of them. But we don't really know how close this is to the reality of singing schools in the 1770s. I don't have time to check on this now, but I believe that some of the instructions for beating time in tune books from this period up into the 1820s talk about "striking the table." This suggests that the practice of sitting at tables was a reality for many years. However, the description of beating triple time in the rudiments of the 1844 edition of the "Sacred Harp" indicates that "for the first down beat, strike the edge of the hand, on the book or lap." This suggests to me that by this time they were sitting on chairs with books held in the hands or on their laps, perhaps indicating that sitting in some form of the "hollow square" had become common at this time. But nothing I've found helps to answer the question of whether classes sat in three sections or four during the time when three-part songs dominated the Sacred Harp repertoire.

Wade Kotter
South Ogden, UT

---

From: figura <fig...@mindspring.com>
To: hanst...@webtv.net; fasola-di...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Sun, July 25, 2010 8:43:55 PM
Subject: Re: [fasola-discussions] re: Sacred Harp Alto

[Slattery, Tim - BLS]

> Any idea whether the 3-part arrangements were created by simply subtracting the
> 4th part, or were originally for three parts?

My understanding is that there were some of each. And some of the songs that were originally composed in four parts and had the alto part stripped, were later brought back to four parts when some well-intentioned person wrote another alto part.

--
Tim Slattery
Slatt...@bls.gov