Unearthly, haunting and breathtaking are a few words that come to mind to describe the music that is created by a group of shape note singers. The radio show All Things Considered describes shape note singing as “full-body, shout-it-out singing,” while the Associated Press calls it “America’s best kept secret.”
You may be wondering, “What exactly is shape note singing?” It’s a uniquely American form of choral music that dates back to the 1600s, originating in New England and eventually spreading south. It reached its peak popularity in the years right before the Civil War.
Shape note singing takes its name from the fact that instead of the familiar dots of musical notation, the pitches are indicated by a series of four distinct shapes: triangles, circles, squares and diamonds.
The tradition of shape note singing continues today and has long been popular in the Pioneer Valley. There are shape note singing groups in Northampton, Amherst, Greenfield, Leyden and Brattleboro, Vt., but one area that has been lacking such a group is Wendell. Classically trained musician Rachel Stevens of Wendell, who has been shape note singing for about 20 years, recently decided to do something about it.
“With the help of Rosie Heidkamp, who runs the Wendell library, I applied for a grant from the Wendell Cultural Council, which is part of the Mass Cultural Council,” Stevens said. “I then got this grant to teach shape note singing at the Wendell library.”
The series of four Friday night workshops kicked off last week at the Wendell Free Library, 7 Wendell Depot Road in Wendell. Three more workshops are scheduled for March 1, March 15 and March 29.
The workshops run from 7 to 8:30 p.m., and are free. All levels of singers are welcome, but beginners are especially encouraged to attend. No advance registration is required.
“I think it’s a very interesting and fun sort of music,” Stevens said. “It started in New England in colonial times, because a lot of people didn’t have pianos and they wanted to be able to teach people to sing in four-part harmony without the use of pianos. They came up with all these shapes instead.”
Stevens is passionate about her experience with shape note singing, and hopes to share her love of this music with others.
“I come from a classical music tradition, where you are in a choir or you are singing solo,” Stevens continued. “You are preparing for a performance and it’s always this kind of focus on perfection. What I really love about shape note singing is there is no performance, there is no director.”
Because it’s not performance-driven, the singers face each other in an open square (called the hollow square) instead of facing an audience. There is no musical accompaniment and the singers take turns leading the group. Songs are sung only once, not practiced over and over.
“You may not get it perfect, but that’s the point. This is singing for the joy of it,” said Stevens, who is organizing, but not teaching, all the workshops. “You are singing directly at other people, you make eye contact with other people. You might be singing this song that you really love, and you look at your friends and there’s this excitement to it, and that’s another aspect of it that I really love.”
Shape note singing received a mainstream boost when it appeared in the 2003 film “Cold Mountain.” The musical consultant for the film was Pioneer Valley resident and musicologist Tim Eriksen, who is one of the country’s leading scholars on shape note singing. Eriksen, who is also a punk rocker and leads the band, Cordelia’s Dad, has done a lot on both a national and local level to promote this music.
Shape note singing has another link to the area in that there used to be a publisher of Sacred Harp books — which most shape note singers use, leading shape note singing to sometimes be called sacred harp singing — in Northampton.
The songs sung are religious in nature, but shape note singing is not affiliated with any denomination. The participants simply come together to sing and, in the process, build community.
“I’m not a religious person, but I find some of these texts meaningful,” Stevens said. “A lot of these songs talk about life and death in a way that we don’t often do in modern society. Some of the songs talk about things like ‘I’m going to be so happy to see you when I die’ — that death is a part of life and an OK part of life. I like that concept.”
Stevens said the first workshop went well, with a good turnout of local people, as well as some experienced singers. She is looking forward to the next session and hopes for more participation.
“I want to introduce people to this tradition who may not have heard of it before,” she said.
If you are planning on attending, don’t worry about missing this first session; you do not have to attend all four workshops. The basics will be reviewed at each session. Becky Walsh and Michael Walter will lead the upcoming workshops.
For more information, call the library at 978-544-3559. For additional information on shape note singing, visit fasola.org or consider attending the Western Massachusetts Sacred Harp Convention, which will be held on March 9 and 10 at the War Memorial Building, 310 Appleton St. in Holyoke.
The first time I saw Paula Cole, she was an unknown singer who happened to be the backup singer on Peter Gabriel’s 1993 tour. She was amazing, and impressively pulled off the parts that were sung by Kate Bush on the album.
A few years later, she hit it big on her own, scoring massive hits with “Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?” and “I Don’t Want to Wait.” She won a Grammy in 1998 for Best New Artist, but Cole eventually became disillusioned with the music business and stepped away from it to concentrate on raising her daughter.
She is once again performing and, like so many artists these days, releasing music on her own. Cole delivered a spellbinding show at Greenfield’s Hawks & Reed Performing Arts Center last year, her voice as expressive and strong as ever.
She will make a return engagement at the 289 Main St. venue on Friday night at 7 p.m. Greenfield resident Tracy Grammer will open the show, and we can expect her to delight the crowd with her excellent songs and her knack for great storytelling.
Advance tickets are $40 and are available at bit.ly/2EiuFns, or $50 day of show. Doors open at 6:30 p.m.
Sheryl Hunter is a music writer who lives in Easthampton. Her work has appeared in various regional and national magazines. You can contact her at soundslocal@yahoo.com.