Talk:Sacred Harp/Archives/2013

last small touches leaves out reel harps
the paragraph above only in a very small way touches on the MISSING, overarching part oif what sacred harp IS,,,, it IS the human voice , BUT it IS the human voice yes, singing, but SINGING in special harmony with God, or SINGING WITH special spiritual connection... that results in the usually observed larger emotions that would trigger when heaard by the participants... this spiritual, special connecting is not mentioned , discussed, or in any way acknowledged by the main overleaf article... so leaving out the most signficant aspect of what 'sacred harp' singing, music is ... and so forth, going on to leave out and not recognized, what this regular practice of such special highest spiritual connections DOES, make the ainger,, singing group, special and scared and holy / holier than otherwise and striving to be highest evolvment of men/women/children on earth ... ... please add to main article the music of the spheres ... and also cross link to the same similar practices of e.g. the masons, templars and priore of scion in such similar singing , chanting , CONNECTING in their meetings and doings .... hodad habib, terrance ahiff jr, moshyak III 24.186.56.245 (talk) AO —Preceding undated comment added 20:28, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

Origin of the modern editions
I would like to see some moves away from this Sacred Harp article being too "Denso-centric" -- that is, what has been a prevailing idea since at least G. P. Jackson that exalts the James-Denson stream of Sacred Harp as the Sacred Harp. For example, in this section we say "The first move was made by W. M. Cooper, of Dothan, Alabama, a leading Sacred Harp teacher in his own region, but not part of the inner circle of B. F. White's old colleagues and descendants." Not part of the inner circle is a notion of no substantive basis mainly because the research was being done in the "James-Denson" arena and not in the Cooper. I have tried to bring us back toward the center a bit in my new booklet Rethinkin' Our Thinkin': Thoughts on Sacred Harp Myths. I'm not calling for anything to be done immediately to the article, but for editors here to research this and think how we can make the article better and maybe a little less biased. Now, to be clear, the Denson part of the tradition is the most widespread, the majority, etc., so I am not talking about that. But that has nothing to do with a statement like the one I quote above. I am going to make a few minor tweaks to update a few things, but nothing along the line of what I discuss here. What are your thoughts?

Forgot to (and how to) sign my name! Oh, and I think this reference from Kiri Miller -- "Miller (2004) characterizes Cooper book style thus: it "contains a greater proportion of "camp meeting" songs than the Denson book, with more compressed part-writing, chromatic harmonies, and choruses characterized by call-and-response rather than "fuging" style. Denson book singers generally say that the Cooper book sounds more like "new book or gospel singing." -- in this context can somewhat cloud the issue. I suppose there are some songs that fit the description of "more compressed part-writing, chromatic harmonies", though I'm no expert in this area. But aren't chromatic harmonies based on the chromatic scale rather than diatonic? Wouldn't that require accidentals? I don't ever recall seeing much of that in the Cooper scores -- and there are none after 2012. Maybe I don't understand. Also in contrast, the Denson altos and Denson changes to Cooper altos introduce many more chords that are triads than Cooper did. Wallace McKenzie proved that in his study. I have also observed in going through and comparing the altos in the Cooper and Denson books that are almost the same. For example, it is extremely common for Denson to rise to the third and fill the final chord where Cooper drops to the fifth and leaves it open. There are more call-and-response songs, but there were some in the older books (Let Us Sing, e.g.). Perhaps the Cooper stream follows a more "campmeeting" tradition and the Denson stream follows a more early American/"fuging" style/tradition. But both are very important parts of the tradition, and I wouldn't be surprised if White & King's 1844 Sacred Harp didn't lean more toward the campmeeting tradition. -- Rlvaughn (talk) 20:06, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Sorry to be so piecemeal. I haven't edited on Wikipedia in quite some time. Here's another suspect: "In the original core geographic area of Sacred Harp singing, northern Alabama and Georgia..." I know of know evidence beyond anachronism that makes northern Alabama any more a part of the "original geographic core" than southern Alabama. On the other hand, we know is that the oldest Sacred Harp convention in Alabama is in southeast Alabama (Cooper territory). These are the kinds of things that, imo, need to be brought up to more current knowledge. -- Rlvaughn (talk) 20:28, 21 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks for bringing this up, Rlvaughn. Here are a couple of thoughts.


 * I'm responsible for most of the wording in the existing article. My main source was Buell Cobb's well-known book. However, I did this a long time ago, when WP standards were lax.  Nowadays, you're really supposed to cite the actual page numbers from the reference sources, so that absolutely everything can be shown to be properly sourced.  This relates, I think, to what you are saying:  It's quite possible that some of the things you are worried about were accidentally made-up by me, and would disappear after a serious effort at sourcing and footnoting took place.  I could try to work on this in the near future, though unfortunately I'm pretty busy these days in real life.
 * I do recall that Cobb's book does rather emphasize the Denson book as being the mainstream. Concerning the question of emphasis, I feel that Wikipedia should give weight to the two traditions in proportion to their prominence in the real world (both past and present) -- whatever that may be.
 * Concerning resources for editing about the Cooper book, could you please specify how WP editors could obtain a copy Rethinkin' Our Thinkin': Thoughts on Sacred Harp Myths? I wouldn't mind citing it if it's a publicly available document, open to discussion (perhaps on the Google Sacred Harp discussion board?). The essential thing in complying with the (obligatory) WP:VER policy is that we must use sources that have been subject to some form of peer review.


 * Regards, Opus33 (talk) 23:17, 22 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Opus, thanks for the reply. I don't think you made up any of what concerns me here. It is pretty much what has been "standard history". I cite many of the sources in my book. Warren Steel's Makers is a good new resource. Though specifically dealing with the 1991 edition, he corrects some old errors -- like addressing that many of the Original Sacred Harp altos were taken from the Cooper book and other sources (even when James credited them to S. M. Denson). Some information about my booklet is here found here: http://www.yourbook.com/BookInfo/IP46835-13.asp. It is basically written to the Sacred Harp community. It cites long held "myths", shows evidence to the contrary and appeals to future Sacred Harp scholars and historians to start considering the contrary evidence and also study the things that have sat aside on a self and not studied. -- Rlvaughn (talk) 11:49, 23 December 2013 (UTC)