West Los Angeles Traditional Four Part Harmony

In shape note singing, we sit where we want, and sometimes switch places (i.e. voices) between songs. Some people sit on the corners (e.g. between alto and bass) so they can switch voices.

It's your voice. You decide.

It's fun to lead your own song and control how fast or slow it should be sung.

In Shape Note singing, we've discovered that all those nice things like ecstacy, grief, woe, happiness, and anticipation get expressed just fine by most people most of the time.

As for those subtle performance parameters -- that's to clue in the audience ("This song is about ecstasy"). If you're the one singing, you know it's about ecstacy.

We shape note singers don't claim any musical superiority, but at least we can stay reasonably on pitch, without paying for expensive instrumental accompaniment.

Therefore, choirs cannot take advantage of the ability of the human voice to sing a pure musical scale composed of simple ratios.

Shape Note Singing is completely a cappella (no instruments).

Call it just intonation, call it the Pythagorean musical scale -- or water trickling over the rocks in a mountain brook...

The difference between a tempered piano and biological voices, simply explained using Old Hundredth (PDF file).

One benefit of a cappella is that you can sing these songs anywhere you happen to be, because no instrumental accompaniment is necessary.

Because shape note singing is polyphonal (each part has it's own musical interest), every singer tends to think of his/her own part as the main melody, and finds satisfaction in singing it all by itself.

Michael? Gabriel? Raphael? Samael?

In shape note singing, sometimes the angels sing with us, so we tend not to worry about this kind of thing.

When you feel like it, you can look up from the songbook & see the faces of the other singers -- it's always different.

Some find this so fascinating, that they start memorizing the songs, spending more and more time looking at people's faces.

In Shape Note singing, each singer sings the way they feel ("discretionary dynamics").
Usually vigor is the discretionary part of dynamics.

Shape Note singing is like Ephesians 5:18 (And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit).

Or Emily Dickenson.

Inebriate of air am I
   And debauche of dew,
Reeling through endless fa-so-las,
   With mis of molten blue.

In Shape Note singing, as noted in Item #16, we don't modulate to different keys, so we are spared this Pavlovian reaction.

So, there must be instrumental accompaniment in order to help the choir get the pitch right when they modulate.

Do we still think that modulation is a sign of incredible musical competence?

In shape note music, we have so much fun singing, that lots of us don't even know what key we're in.

What is "modulate"? Do we "modulate" or not? Most of us don't even know!

"We're marching through Immanuel's ground."

In Shape Note singing, "it's not about the words".

So we should get upset about vowels, then?

In Shape Note singing, we take turns calling songs (this has a lot of unforeseen consequences).

So, we create musical profiles of each other based on favorite songs, or song calling habits ("he likes minor key", "she prefers fast songs", "always calls at least one fuging tune", "adventuresome -- doesn't have a favorite song").

In Shape Note singing, we take turns calling songs...   Again? Yet another consequence?
Consequently, we become acquainted each other's preferences, another social dimension to this music.

How would a choir do that?

Let's all sing the bass part together and goof up on the 49th bar in honor of David Olson, who is in the hospital getting his vocal folds replaced by organ pipes, the better to sing Ralph Vaughn Williams.

In the Sacred Harp we only have English songs.

It's hard enough for some of us to remember that "the" is to be pronounced thee when preceding a vowel sound, but thuh when unaccented.

In fact, most don't remember, because they never learned it in the first place.