singing

[mellowtigger]

unzeugmatic (as he mentions in his most recent account) often attends Sacred Harp singings. I've attended one of his local singings and enjoyed the sound of it. I'm glad that somebody is preserving this old musical tradition. It deserves to be practiced. It's based on a style of musical notation that isn't in much use today. It shares some similarities to the kind of music that I grew up with in the Primitive Baptist church. I'll explain why the two systems don't "play well together" in real life human society though, as it reveals a peculiarity or two of Primitive Baptist belief that is as uncommon today as the music itself.

First, here's proof that I know at least a little about the topic. A scan of one of my singing school certificates (click to see full size) and a google map of the location of the school.


Look at the lower right corner of the intersection. That's the school. The satellite image even caught the school in use, so those'd be the girls camped on the north side and the boys camped on the south side. (Click the image for the Google interactive map. Zoom out to see how isolated the school was.)

The core issue is proselytization. Primitive Baptists don't do it. Ever. Well, they do sometimes individually, but it's against their religious doctrine. It's anathema for them to think that an all-powerful deity needs their personal assistance in accomplishing anything. Around 150 years ago in America, the idea of "missionary work" took hold amongst protestant faiths, taking God's Word to those poor heathens of Africa. Similar to the old conquistador philosophy of "God, Gold, and Glory" that led to colonization, but here it was a strain of belief that really was more focused on the "God" aspect of it.

So revivals sprouted up in America. People with little or no schooling would show up, needing to join in the proceedings. Those leading the singing settled on a few best practices for teaching people on short notice to join in. Some of these best practices led to things like the musical notation and singing styles used in Sacred Harp and Primitive Baptist traditions. Primitive Baptists, however, saw the emotional fervor stirred up at these revivals and were horrified. You see, Primitive Baptists also believe in the Elect, that some people are destined for heaven and others destined for hell, and that's the end of the story. That these revivalists would come in, stir up people's emotions, and tell them that that everyone can go to heaven... well... it amounted to blasphemy, a direct contradiction of what they read as God's word. (Jacob have I loved, Esau have I hated.)

Now, in their defense, the Primitive Baptists for the most part avoided the elitist aspect of the Elect doctrine. I heard many adults state plainly that there were Elect of other nations, of other religions, and certainly among people who had never heard of this Christ guy before. And they were usually pretty careful about stating that they "believe, trust, or hope" that they were among the saved. They had not personally read the Book Of Life, therefore no Primitive Baptist could ever really know if their name was among the saved who were destined for heaven. Some songs would include "I KNOW" I'm going to heaven kind of rhetoric, but it wasn't so much a part of their daily life to think that way.

Hopefully you can see why they would be so flustered by people who thrust (amidst boisterous musical fanfare) emotional influences upon important theological ideas. Primitive Baptists responded by working hard to avoid milking people's emotions. Their music is separated from the main part of the service. It is all congregational singing (no instruments or professional choir) done for 30 minutes prior to the 60-minute sermon (uninterrupted by hymns). It's important that churchgoers know their music and can perform it well, but it's not used to influence the most important message of the occasion.

It was apparently a big political problem when the pastor at my church in Midland, Texas established the Harmony Plains singing school. It was meant to help the various churches teach another generation about reading shape notes, singing from shape notes, and leading songs. Primitive Baptists who first read about it, however, thought it was just Sacred Harp singing in disguise! It was someone trying to encourage that emotional hoopla in church! Apparently it took many years to calm people down, mostly by word of mouth from those who attended the school and attested that it was NOT like those Sacred Harp people. (*wave hello to unzeugmatic*)

So does that mean that Primitive Baptist singing is dull and dead?

Absolutely not. It was, for me, the only thing that made attending church for all those years bearable. (Sunday 10:30am, Sunday 6:30pm, and Wednesday 7pm. *sigh*) It was music that could be quite unearthly at times. In fact, it was at one of the unendureable Fifth Sunday Meetings, a 3-day gathering of regional church members on those rare weekends when a month has a 5th Sunday on the calendar, where I experienced something unusual (which I'll describe later in another post).

Here's sample notation from the hymnal used in my church. (Click for larger photo.)


And here's sample singing from students/teachers at the Harmony Plains school itself.
triumphal feast, the beattitudes, and god of our fathers

Hopefully you'll think it's another tradition worth saving for historical reasons, like the Sacred Harp style. Primitive Baptists are slowly dieing out along with the other non-proselytizing faiths. Church membership tends to follow family lineages. I attended, because my mother attended, because her mother attended... etc.  Even today, if I see a roster for a Primitive Baptist church, I don't recognize the first names but I do recognize some of the last names.