Thank you for your replies, Reid and Dru. I've known about Sacred Harp and
shape note music for a long time, and heard some of the tunes on
recordings - but without the sheer visceral passionate conviction of how it
really should be done - though thanks to YouTube we can now hear (and see)
it properly, and I'm quite bowled over by it. It's church music - but not as
we know it (at least in England!)
The reason for my request is that I'm currently sometimes leading a small
church singing group and trying to enthuse them into some "Sacred Harp"
style singing. We successfully did "Star in the East" in our carol service
this Christmas, and I'm trying to collect more good ones.
If you follow this link to a YouTube recording of a Sacred Harp singing,
you'll see why I'm keen to get the music for Green Street!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUG-EPQqE2Q
though of course I know Diadem well as the usual tune for "All Hail".
Reid - I think it's the "primitive" Sacred Harp style harmony which is so
powerful, as well as the tunes. Does the version in your Baptist hymnbook
have that?
I like the old English West Gallery hymns too - and also Gaelic Psalm
singing, which I've heard in a Free Church on the Isle of Lewis. That can be
like slow Sacred Harp tunes in its spine-tingling minor-key sound, but very
much the opposite of the SH rhythmic drive.
Philip
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dru Brooke-Taylor" <[email protected]>
To: "Dartmouth NPS" <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, January 10, 2011 3:15 PM
Subject: [NSP] Off-topic request for Hymnbook
It's possible the tune might exist somewhere under a different name.
Although what's probably the most usual tune to this hymn (Diadem) has a
lot of repeats, the core is Common Metre. So whatever Green Street is, it
may appear somewhere else as the tune to a different hymn with a different
tune name.
Having said that, a quick check in Oremus, the CCEL hymnary and nethymnal
draws a blank for that title.
Dru
To get on or off this list see list information at
http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
