Seventh Garden State Sacred Harp Singing Convention & Third "Unconventional Sunday"

Convention details

Friday: Workshop with Mark Davis

We are pleased to announce that Mark Davis, longtime chairman of the Mississippi State Sacred Harp Singing Convention, will be teaching at our Friday evening session. Mark grew up singing Sacred Harp in Calhoun County, Mississippi, and he now teaches a 5-day singing school each year before the Chickasaw County Convention. This will be the first time that this highly regarded young singing master and music educator has taught Sacred Harp singing outside of the South. The distinctive traditions of Sacred Harp in northern Mississippi will be unfamiliar to most Sacred Harp singers in the Northeast--don't miss this one!

Saturday: All-day Singing with Dinner on the Grounds

Sunday: Our third "Unconventional Sunday"

This is the third year that we have been invited to spend the Sunday following the convention as guests of a local congregation.

In the morning we will sing for and with the congregation during the worship service and then teach and demonstrate the rudiments of Sacred Harp singing for the church's adult Sunday school.

As in previous years, the Sunday afternoon session will combine The Sacred Harp 1991 edition, new songs, and alternative singing (bring your Cooper Books!). Please supply 60 copies of any new songs or songs from other shape-note books that you wish to lead. Please observe copyright restrictions and obtain permission before copying where required.

Logistical details and information

Books

Copies of The Sacred Harp tunebook (1991 edition, 585 pages, hardbound) will be available for loan or purchase at our cost.

Kids

Children are welcome and encouraged to sing! Childcare for young children may be available; please inquire.

Getting there

The convention venues are located in metro New Jersey, close to New York City, with easy access by highway or by public transportation from all points. For map and detailed travel directions, please see our directions page.

Housing

Rooms are reserved at the Holiday Inn on Route 46 West in nearby Totowa. Call 800 443-5943 by April 22 and ask for the $79 Sacred Harp rate.

To inquire about housing with local singers, call 973 779-8290.

What is Sacred Harp singing?

It is a uniquely American music with roots in colonial New England congregational singing and a continuous tradition preserved by both black and white churches in the rural South. Since the 1970s it has been sung in all parts of North America by people of remarkably diverse musical and religious backgrounds.

Our tunebook, The Sacred Harp (first published in 1844 and most recently revised in 1991), is written in "shape notes": standard musical notation supplemented with variously shaped noteheads that make it easier for beginners to learn the notes of the scale and to learn to read music. But you don't need to read music to join in singing with us!

We sing in the traditional way, sitting in four sections facing each other around a hollow square, beating time together, taking turns leading from the center of the square. Three- and four-part counterpoint--whether devised by largely self-taught "folk" composers or by disciples of the classical masters--is enriched and expanded to six parts by octave doublings. Some songs are lively, some sober; a strongly felt rhythmic pulse governs both.

We sing early versions of standard hymns such as Amazing Grace, Old Hundred, Wayfaring Stranger, and Wondrous Love, much of the music in The Sacred Harp will be unfamiliar even to experienced choral singers: majestic ancient English and European psalm tunes, spirited 18th-century New England "fuging tunes," anthems, folk and gospel hymns, camp-meeting songs from the 19th-century frontier, and compositions in all of these traditional genres by the women and men who have preserved The Sacred Harp and its music through all the years of the 20th century.

For more information about Sacred Harp singing and Sacred Harp resources on the Internet, we recommend starting with Warren Steel's Sacred Harp page at the University of Mississippi.

Call or write us!

More information about Sacred Harp in New Jersey

Want to sing some more? Or get a head-start before the convention? Do you live in our area? Are you visiting? You are always welcome at our monthly Sacred Harp singings in Montclair, New Jersey.

You can also view our archive of pages for previous conventions and other past events.