and everybody said yes

Unfortunately, I didn't see this until yesterday, but Pitchfork is (temporarily) hosting the documentary Awake My Soul. This is definitely worth seeing (I have only watched the first chapter, because I am waiting to see the whole thing on dvd, but I think that Pitchfork is hosting the entirety of the documentary). Its about the tradition of shape note singing, which is a rather old form of church singing practiced in the rural south.

photo by william christenberry

Jeffery Overstreet put up a review of Awake My Soul by Kenneth Morefield earlier this year:

"The technical proficiency of the documentary is fitting because the subject matter of the film -- shape note singing -- is a style of singing that developed in part out of a movement to train people who were going to sing in church to do so in a manner that was orderly and (musically) literate. Raymond Hamrick says of the church atmosphere that gave rise to Sacred Harp that "the church singing had disintegrated to the spot where it was nothing... it was chaos." One historian of the musical school adds: "The purpose was to have musically literate singers in churches so the church music would improve. The result was that musically literate singers wanted to sing something more elaborate and engaging..." It is significant, in that respect, that Sacred Harp singers still use the designation "singing school" to refer to the training of initiates in the style and that the hymns begin by singing the names of the notes ("sol," "la," "fa," etc.) all the way through before singing the words to the hymn.

Those origins may make Sacred Harp singers sound elitist or condescending. Nothing could be further from the image of them projected in the film. "Sacred Harp singers have a lot of love for each other...and it shows" says one singer. Indeed, it does. One of the interesting things about the documentary is how much footage it includes of people singing and how the people look genuinely engaged. They don't have that self-conscious constipated look that so many evangelicals do when they are filmed in their own worship services. The documentary makes the point that there is no applause after a leader's rotation is completed because neither the conducting nor the singing is considered a performance."

Here's the trailer, but, really, you should just go start it at Pitchfork: