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UNIDENTIFIED GROUP #1: (Singing).
SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Shape note singing is one of America's oldest musical traditions, and it is having a bit of a revival now because of an updated songbook.
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SIMON: Laura Atkinson and Justin Hicks, from member station Louisville Public Media, have been reporting on this, and they join us now. Laura, Justin, thanks so much for being with us.
JUSTIN HICKS, BYLINE: Yeah. thanks for having us.
LAURA ATKINSON, BYLINE: Hi.
SIMON: I feel the need to ask. What is shape note singing?
ATKINSON: Well, shape note singing is basically choral singing in four-part harmony, but there are shapes assigned to different musical pitches. So, you know, when you saw the "Sound Of Music" - right? - they sang (singing) do...
SIMON: Do...
ATKINSON: ...(Singing) Re, mi, fa, so, la - exactly, exactly. But in shape notes, they only use fa, so, la and mi. And the idea is that it's a kind of quicker way to learn how to read music. Alan Lomax was an early musicologist who studied this kind of singing. Here's one of his recordings with people singing the shapes.
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UNIDENTIFIED GROUP #2: (Singing) Fa, fa, so, la, fa, so, fa, so, la...
HICKS: Yeah. And unlike some other forms of music, there's no such thing as a professional shape note singer because it's meant to be participatory. So at a singing, which is what they call when they get together to sing shape notes, people aren't encouraged to be perfect, like a choir, but just to make a joyful noise, you know, as best as they can.
SIMON: You folks recently released a radio documentary called "Shapes Of America." And you say that shape note singing is one of our oldest and most distinctly American musical traditions. Where does it come from?
ATKINSON: Well, it traces way back to colonial New England in around the 1700s, during a time when really, most people didn't even have access to music education or sometimes even instruments. But people were hearing music in their churches, but they wanted music that sounded a little bit better.
HICKS: Yeah. So as a result, people made this method that used shapes to correspond to pitches. So, for instance, when you saw a square, that would mean to sing la, and when you saw a triangle, that means to sing fa. And so once you learn the tune, you sing with lyrics which wound up being set to popular biblical themes. For example, here's the Western Massachusetts Sacred Harp Convention singing a tune called "I'll Seek His Blessings."
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WESTERN MASSACHUSETTS SACRED HARP CONVENTION: (Singing) I'll seek His blessings every noon (I'll seek His blessings every noon, blessings every noon.) I'll seek His blessings every noon. And pay my vows at night (pay my vows).
HICKS: So this combination of this quick music education with religious undertones really took hold in the South. And on reporting, we learned that one tune book in particular, called "The Sacred Harp," became the cornerstone for this type of singing. We talked to a University of Georgia music professor, Esther Morgan-Ellis, who studies this.
ESTHER MORGAN-ELLIS: In the early 20th century, if you walked into a rural Southern home, the two things you would see prominently displayed would be the Bible and "The Sacred Harp."
SIMON: Are there tunes sung in this tradition that we still know today?
HICKS: Yes. And Scott, have you heard of a tune called "Amazing Grace"?
SIMON: Let me - yes, of course I have.
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HICKS: That actually comes from the shape note tradition. It maybe was written a little bit before that, but it is a very popular tune called "New Britain" in "The Sacred Harp."
ATKINSON: And so the shape note singing was just hugely popular for a long time. Then around post-World War II era, it seemed like it was about to die out.
SIMON: But not quite 'cause we're talking about it now. What happened?
HICKS: Yeah. So these days, people are singing it all around the world - in Germany and Poland and Norway and Japan. There's groups everywhere. There's actually a pretty well-known convention these days in Cork, Ireland. And this is a group of Irish singers singing a tune called "Idumea."
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UNIDENTIFIED GROUP #3: (Singing) And am I born to die? To lay this body down, and must my trembling spirit fly.
HICKS: And so really the reason why it's spreading is that even though the lyrics of most shape note songs are still religious in nature, the singing community has gone out of its way to be radically welcoming to just about anyone.
ATKINSON: Yeah. And today, some people - it's a way that they can feel connected to a tradition or to community without really getting too involved in dogma. And there's even an unwritten rule that Justin and I learned, which we really love. It's among these shape note singers. They say, don't talk about religion, politics or college football.
SIMON: (Laughter).
ATKINSON: And today, you know, it's pretty common for an older conservative singer to sit right next to a queer, nonbinary singer, and no one ever bats an eye.
HICKS: Yeah. Case in point - we met this guy named Nicholas Thompson (ph). He's gay, and his church in rural Alabama asked him to leave after he came out. But the shape note community sort of embraced him.
NICHOLAS THOMPSON: Sacred Heart let me be who I was, and I didn't have to pretend to be anybody when I was at singings or with singers. And the fact that it's being kept alive by the queer community, the, you know, minorities, I love that. I love that it's become a melting pot of everybody.
HICKS: So as Laura and I worked on this radio doc, it really struck both of us that we're in a time where we talk a lot about loneliness and people who are trying to find community in ways that are offline. And this, for a lot of people, seems to be a solution to that.
SIMON: Tell us more about the updates being made to the shape note songbook.
ATKINSON: Well, we learned this past summer that this shape note book that we're talking about, "The Sacred Harp," was being revised and that the community was continuing to grow and grow. And we met a younger guy from Georgia named Jose Camacho-Cerna, who came to shape note singing in a really kind of interesting, kind of bizarre way.
JOSE CAMACHO-CERNA: Funny enough, I was in a punk band (laughter). I know. It's kind of crazy. You start contemplating your mortality. You start like, wow, you know? And that's something that really attracted me to it. I just thought it was very metal.
ATKINSON: In fact, Jose was one of the singers who even contributed a new song to the songbook. There were more than a thousand people who submitted songs to be considered, and his, which is called "Lowndes," after his home county in Georgia - his was one of the about a hundred that made the cut.
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UNIDENTIFIED GROUP #4: (Singing) The morning walks upon the earth, and man awakes to toil and mirth. All living things and lands are gay. Dear God, walk with me through the day.
SIMON: And I gather that the theme of democracy came up a few times in your documentary. How so?
ATKINSON: Well, this was something that was totally unexpected for both of us, but we kept being told again and again by these singers that they believe that shape note singing could - as they put it - save democracy. There was even this singer - her name is Susan Lee (ph) - who said that, you know, people take it very seriously. When you come to a singing, you leave your divisions at the door, and you respect one another.
SUSAN LEE: We are not Baptist, Jews, Episcopalians and atheists. We are altos, tenors, trebles and basses. And we know we need each other to do this.
HICKS: So Susan Lee was one of the singers who went to this book launch in Atlanta for the newly revised "Sacred Harp." She was one of 700 people who came to all sing together. And so we kind of want to leave you with this sound of all the people singing from "The Sacred Harp" together.
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UNIDENTIFIED GROUP #5: (Singing) Oh, help us when our spirits cry. With contrite anguish sore, and when our hearts...
SIMON: Well, that's very beautiful. Justin Hicks, Laura Atkinson of Louisville Public Media. Their radio documentary, Shapes of America, is available now at lpm.org. Justin and Laura, thanks so much for bringing this to us.
HICKS: Of course. Thanks, Scott.
ATKINSON: Thank you.
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UNIDENTIFIED GROUP #5: (Singing) Are cold and dry, oh, help us, Lord, the more. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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