The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 86, July 1982 - April, 1983 Page: 47
616 p. : ill. (some col.), maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Anglo-Texan Spirituals
Traditionally the melody is printed on the tenor line. Traditionally
every singer learns every part, and well-sung harmony is the pleasure
of both singers and listeners. This approximate transcription of the
Jeffus group indicates that singing-by-ear variations may occur even
when singers have books in hand.
The key was minor, the tonal effect that of a lament skillfully
matched with the words. It was sung in unison with an occasional male
voice dropping to the low note of an octave, or a voice off key or search-
ing for harmony. Contrasted with nineteenth-century sentimental
hymns it was spare in lyric, unadorned in music. People called it old-
fashioned and it was: the perpetuation of a special kind of singing
school, in which the stress was less on the meaning of the words, more
on creating agreeable harmonies.
It is a fasola system and antedates the doremi. It was popular in
seventeenth-century England and was brought to America by the
earliest settlers. Scales in early editions are "gapped"-five-tone or six-
tone. The illustration is from the Cooper edition. There are four
shaped notes-fa (triangle), sol (round), la (square), and mi (dia-
mond), placed on three five-line, four-space staves, bass, tenor, and
treble. The staves represent the three-part harmony in the first edition.
The gamut is fa sol la fa sol la followed by mi when it was needed to
complete the diatonic scale. The voice parts were soprano (treble),
tenor (air), and bass (burden), with counter as an occasional fourth.
Later the alto was substituted for the counter and four-part harmony
became predominant. "Wondrous Love" is the scale without the mi.
MAJOR SCALE OR LEADING NOTE. MINOR SCALES.
t 9 3 4 5 6 7 lord 1 ! 3 4 6 T
Historically authentic, Sacred Harp singing is incompatible with
modern church music or with the music printed in later singing school
books. More and more it is confined to small troups dedicated to keep-
ing it alive and to listeners who, after the first shock of the sound, find
in it a satisfying and beautiful experience. Though chiefly confined to
the Deep South, it became prominent in rural East Texas, and East
Texas may be its final repository. That would be fitting. On page 422
of the 1844 edition there is "A Song of Texas":
*Reproduced with the permission of Sacred Harp Book Company, Inc.
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 86, July 1982 - April, 1983, periodical, 1982/1983; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101209/m1/67/: accessed April 25, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.