Providence's shape-note singers await a visitor from 'Cold Mountain'

01:00 AM EST on Thursday, February 5, 2004

BY RICK MASSIMO
Journal Pop Music Writer

No matter what a decibel meter may tell you, some forms of music just seem louder than others. And here in Providence, about 30 people gather on the fourth Sunday of every month to sing vocal music that's more than a century older than electric instruments, but fills up your ears like few other genres can.

It's called shape-note singing, or Sacred Harp music. It's one of the oldest forms of music in America, but it's also just gotten exposure to millions of ears nationwide, thanks to the movie Cold Mountain. And Tim Eriksen, who taught the Cold Mountain cast the songs and techniques of shape-note singing, is coming to Providence to do a "singing school" and a solo performance on Sunday.

The devoted practitioners who gather in the Round Top Center in downtown Providence monthly couldn't be happier.

"It has sort of drummed up business, which everyone is pretty gleeful about," says Charles Cofone, one of the leaders, "as much as there are leaders," of the Providence group.

A shape-note "singing" is done much like it was in Colonial days: on chairs set in a square. The bass, tenor, alto and soprano singers sit in sections, each taking a side of the square. In the center stands the leader. (Anyone can lead, and leaders are typically changed after each song.)

After the leader picks the song, the group agrees on a pitch. This is the tonic note, or the "fa." (Instead of the typical do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti-do that we all grew up with, in this music the pitches are referred to as fa-so-la-fa-so-la-mi-fa.) The tune is sung through once with these syllables taking the place of the lyrics, so everyone can get straight on the key and refresh themselves on the melody. Then the song begins.

The leader keeps the tempo by swinging his or her forearm vertically, chopping at the air. A good fraction of the rest of the group does this as well.

This is not a performance; there is no audience. It's not a rehearsal; they don't go back and work on something. It's a recreational event, a social event, a therapeutic event, a historical event.

Distinctive shapes

The term "shape-note" comes from the music's notation: it looks like regular sheet music, but rather than the traditional oval shapes, the notes are shaped according to their relative positions on the musical scale. This was done originally to help people who couldn't read music follow along, Cofone says.

The compositions are distinctive as well. The harmonies are very wide, says Ginnie Ely, a self-described "documenter of the tradition" who lives in the Boston area and came to the Providence "singing" last week. That means the distance between the note of the bass singers and the soprano singers is wider than in most vocal music.

There's also a distinctive way to sing this music. None of those perfect pear-shaped O's or musical-theater hyper-enunciation. Basically, it's at the top of your lungs.

Put all these characteristics together and you're dealing with some serious power. Last week at the Round Top Center, the group was clearly audible 10 feet away from the building, with the windows closed.

Once inside, the sound opens up. Close-harmony singing, like barbershop or gospel, is impressive, even dazzling; shape-note singing is explosive. And if 30 people singing are loud, the silences that come when this group stops on a dime are almost as loud.

Colonial poise, passion

The combination of devotional lyrics and musical power is reminiscent of the mix of poise and passion that we associate with Colonial New England. And that's where shape-note singing started.

The literature available at the Providence singing says The New England Psalm-Singer, a 1770 book of shape-note music by William Billings, of Boston, is the first volume of original music composed by an American.

According to Kelly House, of Warwick, another leader of the Providence group, the music was eventually frowned on as primitive.

Ginnie Ely agrees, saying that the "better-music movement" began to institute a sweeter sound in the early 19th century. (For the musically inclined, Ely says that shape-note harmonies rarely use the "sweet-sounding" major third; play a C chord on a piano, take out the E note, and you can hear the difference.)

Shape-note was also frowned upon because of its fuguing tunes, which are like rounds except that the singers eventually end up coming back together: "There was a thought," Ely says, "that if you didn't sing all the words, all together, at the same time, that God couldn't understand you."

But the music had followers in New England until the 1930s, and singings are still popular in the South.

Even though some call it Sacred Harp, the music has "never had any specific denominational ties," House says. "Early on, it was as much a social event as a religious event."

Cofone agrees, and that's why he prefers the term "shape-note." The term Sacred Harp "puts people off," he says later from his office in the Lincoln School, in Providence, where he is director of technology. "It is so not sacred. It's done as a historical thing."

Laura McCarty, 22, of Providence, has been shape-note singing for six years, since she learned it in her native Vermont.

"My boyfriend thinks I'm in a cult," she said at last week's singing. "But I don't even believe in Jesus that way, per se. But the music is great, and I do believe in the poetry. A lot of the poetry is touching. It's about life and death and hope."

Ely, who runs a singing school and a Sunday-morning singing at the annual New England Folk Festival, gets up to lead a song and explains that it's in honor of her grandmother, who recently died. She calls for number 146, and she stands in the middle of the hollow square and sets the tempo as they sing:

"And let this feeble body fail/ And let it faint or die/ My soul shall quit this mournful vale/ And soar to worlds on high."

A wealth of experience

Cofone says that the Providence group has been together "a couple of years, only. A lot of us used to sing, and still do sing, in other places."

Cofone used to sing with a group at Wesleyan University, in Middletown, Conn., and sometimes sings with a group in the Boston area. House sang with a group in Northampton, Mass., and still does. And some people from these groups head to Providence for the monthly singing.

House says, "This music -- when we were just out of college and doing it, pretty much every weekend we'd drive hours to go sing, because -- I guess it kind of gets into people's bones.

The Providence group is fairly experienced, but "we absolutely encourage" new people, Cofone says. There are smaller singings on various Thursday nights at people's houses, for new singers to get the hang of it. "We don't rip through the songs like we do on the fourth Sunday," Cofone says.

"At first, it went right over my head," McCarty said. "Everyone was singing so fast; I couldn't follow it. But then I caught on after a while."

Cold Mountain sound

There are two examples of shape-note singing in the movie Cold Mountain, Cofone says -- one in the opening battle sequence and another in a church.

Tim Eriksen was the adviser to the cast and director, teaching Jude Law and Nicole Kidman to sing the music. He also invited House, a former singing colleague, to Alabama to sing with the group that recorded the soundtrack in Henegar, Ala. And he's coming to Providence this weekend for a "school" (a shape-note workshop) and a performance.

Along with the Eriksen visit, the Providence group has two other events coming up. There will be an "all-day singing" at the Round Top Center, including a pot-luck "dinner on the grounds," another shape-note tradition, on April 3. And the 2006 New England convention is coming to Providence. This will be the first time the convention has been in Rhode Island.

Cofone is happy, if wary of the logistical challenges.

Mostly though, he just loves to sing the music. He spent years as a musical director in theaters at the University of Rhode Island and various summer theaters. And as powerful as the music itself was, the informality of shape-note singing was a lot of the appeal as well.

"It was such a pleasure to me not to have that rehearsal part of it," Cofone says. "To just arrive, have somebody say 'OK, turn to number 66,' turn to that page, sing through the shapes, and say 'OK, let's do another one.' And not have that whole 'Let's go over that phrase,' 'Here's how I want you to do this' -- you just sing your brains out.

"I really look forward to it; it's very therapeutic to just honk away."

Tim Eriksen will lead a Sacred Harp singing school Sunday from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. at the Round Top Center, which is behind the Beneficent Church, 300 Weybosset St. in Providence. He will then perform a solo concert at 7:30. The singing school is free; for the concert, a donation of $12, $8 for students, is suggested. For more information, call (401) 467-4799.

For more information on shape-note singing, including recorded clips of the music, go to www.fasola.org.