Cold Mountain shines light on little known American music

<p>Surrounded by other singers arranged in a square, Judy Hauff rocks her feet heel to toe, rhythmically slashes the air with her arm, opens her mouth and sings _ Fa la sol la sol.</p><p>Hauff is singing shape note music, an a cappella, traditional form of singing folk hymns that dates to Colonial times.</p><p>Also known as Sacred Harp music, it is enjoying a revival after being featured in the film Cold Mountain and on its soundtrack.</p><p>Its Americas best kept musical secret, said Hauff, singing at a recent workshop at the Old Town School of Folk Music.</p><p>Sacred Harp uses printed shapes to help untrained singers read the music. A triangle represents fa, a circle for sol, a square for la and a diamond for mi.</p><p>There is no accompaniment _ harp refers to the most-used tune book, The Sacred Harp, first published in 1844. Also unique is the way singers are organized _ in an open square, with tenors, bass, alto and treble voices each taking a side. Singers take turns leading the group, almost always sing through a song using its notes before singing the lyrics, and beat their hands to keep time.</p><p>The result is a loud, clear, almost astringent quality that some describe as sounding ancient, others like a human bagpipe or organ. And everyone is expected to participate _ there is no division between a choir and audience.</p><p>One of the things thats been hardest to convey to people is that this music is for singing, said Tim Eriksen, who sings and appears in Cold Mountain and who led the workshop in which Hauff participated. Its not for listening. You can listen to it ... But the beauty of this really comes in the singing.</p><p>Some Sacred Harp enthusiasts hope Cold Mountain will do for shape note singing what the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack did for bluegrass and old time music. The soundtracks share the same producer, T Bone Burnett.</p><p>The workshop given by Eriksen was so popular that organizers rearranged the room and expanded the class size from 35 to 80. In other cities, long-established Sacred Harp groups are finding new people appearing at their all-day singings. And while only two Sacred Harp songs appear on the soundtrack, there is talk of releasing an entire CD filled with shape note music from the Cold Mountain sessions.</p><p>The movie, which was nominated for seven Academy Awards Tuesday, focuses on the journey of a wounded Confederate soldier home to the woman he loves. A shape note song called Idumea is played over a battle, and a scene in a church features the characters singing Im Going Home from their Sacred Harp hymnals when they are interrupted with news that the Civil War is under way.</p><p>The Sacred Harp music heard on the soundtrack and in the movie was recorded by Sacred Harp singers at Liberty Baptist Church on Alabamas Sand Mountain, although bits of the stars singing voices were blended in.</p><p>Eriksen was hired to teach the actors how to sing shape note music so that they would look realistic on film. His singing voice was also dubbed in for that of a fiddler who sings, and he appears on the soundtrack and in the church scene leading the song.</p><p>A punk rocker and world music expert from Massachusetts who discovered shape note singing in his teens, Eriksen, 37, symbolizes the variety of people the music attracts. And while the hymns are Christian in nature, singings are not outwardly religious.</p><p>Sacred Harp music was replaced in many parts of the country in the second half of the 19th century by gospel music. But it found a permanent home in rural areas of the South, where singing conventions cropped up and people would travel for miles to sing for hours, or days, at a time.</p><p>About 20 years ago, Sacred Harp attracted new enthusiasts, many of them curious participants on college campuses and in churches in New England and the Midwest.</p><p>In Chicago, Hauff, 60, and Ted Johnson, 75, were part of a group of about a dozen folk-music fans who discovered Sacred Harp music in the early 1980s. Intrigued, they traveled to the South to learn from people who had grown up singing the music.</p><p>It just blew us away, Johnson remembered.</p><p>From that small group, the Sacred Harp scene in Chicago blossomed.</p><p>Weekly singings are held in peoples homes and monthly singings at a community center. An all-day singing the day after Eriksens workshop in January attracted more than 150 people.</p><p>Now there are Sacred Harp groups across the nation and many enthusiasts fly cross-country on weekends to join other groups all-day shape note singings.</p><p>Richard DeLong, one of the singers who participated in the Liberty Baptist Church recordings, said he hopes the new exposure will help keep Sacred Harp music alive for generations to come.</p><p>Were delighted to welcome new people all the time, said DeLong, who was taken to his first shape note singing as a baby by his grandmother in rural Georgia. It wont take them very long _ if they keep coming, theyll get hooked, just like the rest of us, and be part of the extended musical family we have.</p><p>__</p><p>On the Net:</p><p>HASH(0x286381c)</p><p>HASH(0x28638c4)</p><p>Tim Eriksen: http:www.timeriksen.net</p><p>HASH(0x2863a5c)</p>

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