Sand Mountain Sacred Harp Singers

by RVANews staff

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• Shape Note Singing
• Sand Mountain, Alabama

From the Dean’s Desk »

Sacred Harp is an old method of music notation used for singing hymns, a method that was largely wiped out and replaced by European hymn styles in most of America in the nineteenth century. Just about everywhere except Sand Mountain. This music is not meant to be performed (peculiar, then, that they would perform at a festival) and is much more raucous than your gentle, beautiful, church hymn.

• Watch a related video on YouTube (Note: those featured in the video are not Sand Mountain Sacred Harp Singers — this is just intended to give an idea of what they sound like.)

Professional bio

For generations, families from the Sand Mountain area of northeastern Alabama have raised their voices in song, carrying on the tradition of glorious, unaccompanied four-part harmony singing from The Sacred Harp, a beloved southern shape note songbook first published in 1844 and still sung from today.

September 28, 2010 1