Southern Music

Music is not only a source of entertainment that people have enjoyed for thousands of years, but it is also a way to show our identity and part of culture. Southern culture is rich with many different types of music: blues, bluegrass, country, rap, and more. The topic for this week is to pick either a genre of music or a specific song and talk about it and how it is part of Southern culture or depicts Southern identity.

I will talk about shape note singing (also known as sacred harp singing because the book they sing from is titled The Sacred Harp). It is called shape note singing because the music is written using 4 different shapes to depict different notes making it easier to read. Everyone sits in a square facing inward to the singing leader. People keep time with their arm as can be seen in the videos. Shape note singing was sung both in the northeast and the South in the first half of the 19th century but it fizzled out in the north and flourished in the South. It was sung in many churches, and with how religious the South is, it makes sense it became more popular in the South. Shape note singing is not a refined music, the singing is rough and unique. In recent years shape note singing has gained popularity and there are singings that occur quite often. The singings nowadays are not a church service but the lyrics of the songs they sing are religious. The singings have a very hospitable and homely feel to them. Everyone is welcome to join in the singing and get up and lead a song (the singing leader changes with every song). The singings usually are an all day event where they sing for several hours and then break for food and then sing some more. There is a singing at St. Paul's Presbyterian Church that meets on the 1st, 3rd, and 5th Wed. of every month. It is marked on the Y'all Come Back Now map. The first video is a trailer for a movie about shape note singing and it talks a little bit about the music and history and the second video is from the movie Cold Mountain in which shape note singing appears and is heard a couple of times.