Even before you ever picked up an instrument, you probably sang a song. Whether it was “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” or “Cluck Old Hen,” we have all encountered singing in many different forms—sometimes with a group of people, other times alone, and both with and without instruments. This article gives an overview of singing styles you might encounter in north Georgia.
Ballads
Ballads, many of which were brought over by Scots-Irish immigrants during the eighteenth century, are a form of story-telling through song. They are typically sung unaccompanied (without instruments) and span themes including travel, murder, and memorable characters. The many verses to each ballad used not to be written down. Instead, singers relied on oral tradition to pass songs on to family members or friends in the next generation. Some ballads have over twenty verses to them! That may seem long, but think about how long movies or books are—ballads, too, contain characters, plot, build-up, climax, and a resolution.
A great example of a family ballad singing tradition in Georgia is that of Mary Lomax (1927-2020) and Bonnie Loggins (1920-2018), two sisters from Habersham and White County who learned many ballads and other songs from their father, Lemuel Payne (1884-1968). Unlike fiddle tunes, which were played at public events like dances, ballads were more likely to be sung inside family circles or among friends, which made them less likely to be commercially recorded. Today you might hear ballads performed or included in a recorded compilation, such as the Mary Lomax Book by Art Rosenbaum, which helps to sustain the singing tradition.
Mary Lomax singing “The Devil Song”, from Neil Rosenbaum’s documentary, “Sing My Troubles By”
What is Harmony?
When singing with another person, you may have the opportunity to sing in harmony with each other. Harmony is what you hear when two or more notes—usually notes that belong to the same chord—are played or sung at the same time. Three-part harmony includes an upper, middle, and lower part sung at the same time. Singing harmony adds a richness to the sound of a song, whether it is used in a verse or chorus. Some musicians famous for their harmony singing include the Carter Family, Ralph Stanley and His Clinch Mountain Boys, and Alice Gerrard and Hazel Dickens.
Ralph Stanley singing “Goin’ to Georgia” (1971)
The Bell sisters of Pick & Bow singing “Angel Band”
Lined-Out Hymnody
There are many different group singing traditions with various historical origins. Before books were common, one style used by large groups of people was called lined-out hymnody. This tradition has roots in seventeenth century England and was brought by immigrants to the U.S., where it took root most in Baptist churches of the Southeast. In lined-out hymnody, an individual—called the precenter—calls out the words to a line of a hymn, and the congregation repeats the line to the melody of the song. This way, only the precenter needs a hymn book, and everyone else can follow the precenter’s lead to sing the song.
Amazing Grace in lined-out hymnody at Antioch Old Regular Baptist Church
Shape-Note Singing (aka Sacred Harp Singing)
Another style of group singing is shape-note singing, which uses a system of shapes associated with syllables—known as “solfège”—to identify notes, rather than standard sheet music notation. In the four-shape system, the names of the notes are “fa-sol-la-fa-sol-la-mi” for the seven scale degrees, in which fa is a triangle, sol is a circle, la is a rectangle, and mi is a diamond.
Solfège shape-note system
Shape-note singing developed in New England during the eighteenth century and later spread to the South, where it has taken root. Shape-note singing is sometimes called “Sacred Harp singing,” after a popular shape-note songbook called The Sacred Harp, published in 1844 by E.B. White and E.J. King, who were both from Georgia. Georgia has a particularly rich history of singing conventions, where people gather for the day to sing songs from books like The Sacred Harp and share a meal together. Historically, there was a singing convention in each county, though regional and state-based conventions are more common today. Like lined-out hymnody, anyone is able to participate in shape-note singing, regardless of musical experience. Chairs or benches are placed to form a square shape, so that people face towards each other and sing one of four parts: treble, alto, tenor (or lead), and bass. Individuals take turns choosing one of the many songs to lead, for which they set the key and pace. You might see people moving an arm up and down to keep time with the music. Although many of the songs in shape-note singing books might have sacred origins, people come at the music from many different angles. The focus of shape-note gatherings is on the community, rather than the performance, of the music.
164th session of Chattahoochee Sacred Harp Singing Convention in the Cross Plains community of GA (Times-Georgian, 2016)
Spirituals & Gospel Music
Spirituals emerged in the nineteenth century in the gatherings of enslaved African Americans, who sang songs of struggle, sorrow, hope, and joy. Many song lyrics drew from Biblical stories that reflected the experience of being held bondage in slavery, and sometimes encoded important escape directives as well. For example, the lyrics in the spiritual “Wade in the Water” carried both the meanings of baptism and warning to an escaped slave to “head for the water” if in danger of being chased by a slave master. Spirituals are typically sung in call-and-response form, in which one leader sings a line, followed by a group of people singing a refrain together (lined-out hymnody uses a similar approach, but the words are sung much more slowly and the line that the audience sings back is the same, rather than an alternative refrain). This format enabled the songs to be passed down by oral tradition, as opposed to relying on printed text, though there have also been printed compilations published as early as the mid-nineteenth century. Spirituals today are sung in churches and are at the foundation of much of American popular music, inspiring blues, jazz, and other genres.
Fisk Jubilee Singers performing “Wade in the Water” (2019)
Spirituals came to greatly influence gospel music, which developed in the following century, when many African Americans migrated north and formed new church communities and musical traditions. Gospel singing combined spirituals with improvisation as ragtime, blues, and jazz were incorporated into its energetic sound. Songs from both gospel music and spirituals have been adapted into other contexts, such as protest songs like “We Shall Overcome” and “Oh, Freedom!,” which were sung during the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 60s.
Dr. Kathy Bullock performs at the John C. Campbell Folk School’s Virtual Morningsong (2020)
Sunday morning gospel jam at Bear on the Square (2016)
From left to right: Ann Whitley-Singleton, Debbielee Whelchel, Sarrah Ellen McDonald
REFERENCES
“African American Gospel.” Library of Congress. Accessed May 27, 2021. https://www.loc.gov/collections/songs-of-america/articles-and-essays/musical-styles/ritual-and-worship/african-american-gospel.
“African American Spirituals.” Library of Congress. Accessed May 27, 2021. https://www.loc.gov/item/ihas.200197495/.
Epstein, Dena J. Sinful Tunes and Spirituals: Black Folk Music to the Civil War. Urbana, Ill: University of Illinois Press, 2003.
Morgan-Ellis, Esther M. “Unaccompanied Singing Traditions of the Southern Appalachians.” In Accessible Appalachia: An Open-Access, Introductory Textbook in Appalachian Studies, ed. Lisa Day. Eastern Kentucky University, 2021.
Reece, Chuck. “Let Everybody Sing.” The Bitter Southerner, 2015. https://bittersoutherner.com/sacred-harp-let-everybody-sing.
Rosenbaum, Art. The Mary Lomax Ballad Book: America’s Great 21st Century Traditional Singer. E. Windsor, NJ: CAMSCO Music and Loomis House Press, 2013.
Rosenbaum, Neil. Sing My Troubles By: Georgia Women Carrying On Their Musical Traditions, 2014. http://www.singmytroublesby.com/.