More Mark Gilston on YouTube

[Dirge]

Sacred Harp?

[Chris Drinkwater]

Sacred Harp?

Yep. Sacred Harp singing is a tradition of sacred choral music that took root in the Southern region of the United States. It is part of the larger tradition of shape note music. The name of the tradition comes from the title of the shape note book from which the music is sung, The Sacred Harp. "Shape note" music means that the notes are printed in special shapes that help the reader fluently identify them on the musical scale. Each of the four shapes is connected to a particular syllable: fa, sol, la, and mi; and these syllables are employed in singing the notes, just as in the more familiar system that uses do, re, mi, etc. The system used in the Sacred Harp is able to cover the full musical scale because each syllable-shape combination other than mi is assigned to two distinct notes of the scale.

 

Chris

[Tradman]

A good history of Sacred Harp and its British roots can be found on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacred_harp

 

Sacred Harp?

Yep. Sacred Harp singing is a tradition of sacred choral music that took root in the Southern region of the United States. It is part of the larger tradition of shape note music. The name of the tradition comes from the title of the shape note book from which the music is sung, The Sacred Harp. "Shape note" music means that the notes are printed in special shapes that help the reader fluently identify them on the musical scale. Each of the four shapes is connected to a particular syllable: fa, sol, la, and mi; and these syllables are employed in singing the notes, just as in the more familiar system that uses do, re, mi, etc. The system used in the Sacred Harp is able to cover the full musical scale because each syllable-shape combination other than mi is assigned to two distinct notes of the scale.

 

Chris

Edited March 24, 2010 by Tradman

[Tradman]

The Palestine mini concertina festival was wonderful, and it was great to have John Roberts with us.

 

Well back to Swedish music this week. Here's a senpolska (slow polska) from Medelpad:

 

 

Enjoy,

Mark Gilston

[Tradman]

This week I'm singing an American version of the rare ballad, Queen Jane (Child 52), one of the big ballads about incest. I learned this song from Sara Cleveland, a wonderful singer of Irish descent who lived in the Adirondack mountains of New York.

 

 

Enjoy,

Mark Gilston

[Tradman]

This week's contribution is The Fox - My favorite version of a song which is quite widespread in the English speaking world. This superb text and great melody comes from England.

 

 

 

I probably won't be posting any more concertina material for a while as I'd like to get a better mike for when I record singing, and I have some other kinds of material I'd like to start introducing on YouTube. I will be continuing to post weekly videos on mountain dulcimer.

 

Hope you enjoy,

Mark Gilston

 

http://markgilston.com/

Edited April 16, 2010 by Tradman