Sing! It Takes Time to Put the Power to the Notes
A Photographic Essay of the Sacred Harp Tradition in Texas
by Lisa Carol HardawayAlthough sacred harp, also known as shape-note singing, has been depicted in films such as "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" and "Cold Mountain," it is still a little-known tradition of spiritual music.
Sacred harp, or shape-note singing, uses a hymnal with simplified musical notation, the "shape notes," for congregants who do not read music. It took hold in the Southern United States in the 18th century, and has been sung in rural Texas since 1855. The Austin Area Sacred Harp Singers, including fifth-generation Texan singer Gaylon Powell, boasts members of varying faiths - plus a few agnostics and atheists. Regardless of faith, singers cite a powerful force channeled through the unaccompanied human voices.
Hardaway's evocative and insightful images introduce us to this rural spiritual practice.
Sacred harp is an American national treasure, inextricably entwined with the civilization of America. The repertory reflects a celebration of religious freedom, making it a veritable time-line in early American music. It includes genres derived from the English, such as psalm-tunes, odes and anthems, but the addition of fuguing tunes, folk hymns and spirituals make sacred harp music distinctly American. It is the longest continuously practiced art music in the United States.
Artist's statement
My initial interest in the sacred harp tradition in Texas sparked from a recording I heard of the Word of Mouth Chorus, and an article I read in Texas Highways magazine in 1987. My training had been in the conservatory approach to music as a performer and musicologist at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University, and I was fascinated with the idea of a music with lineage to the folk tunes and hymns of Western Europe. The combination of these texts and tunes with the modifications made by Americans to the notation system from the Renaissance (turning notes into representations of pitch rather than duration) compelled me to find the present day practice of this music.
My introduction to a singing was quite a shock. The pristine aesthetic of the Word of Mouth Chorus was nowhere to be found. I was confused. Then I was swept up in the real emotions which drive this music. All are welcome, all can sing, all can lead. The important thing is to participate, at whatever level, and to feel the power of the sound, the words, the gaze of the singers as they follow your lead. It is a feeling of belonging, of reaching beyond oneself to a higher ground.
About the Artist
Lisa Hardaway is an ethnomusicologist and accomplished photographer. She earned her bachelor's and master's degrees in music from the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University, and pursued further study toward a doctorate at the University of Texas at Austin. Along this journey, she became fascinated with the sacred harp tradition and the singing communities in Texas.
Hardaway spent 15 years documenting and singing in these communities. Her extraordinary photographic essay beautifully depicts the heart and soul of this spiritual tradition. She gives us a peek into the human connections in these communities and what it means for those who participate, from the very young to the very old. Fittingly for the subject matter, Lisa's photographs recall the heroic days of regional photography: the WPA and FSA projects of the 1930s that gave America a picture of itself. Dorothea Lange, Roy Stryker, Russell Lee, Gorden Parks and Walker Evans created an enduring family portrait of rural and small town America then. This is the photographic tradition that Hardaway explores in her illuminating essay on the people and the rural Texas landscapes, churches and meeting places where they come together, maintaining this tradition.
Hardaway is also a frequent teacher/lecturer at universities and academic conferences, and with her husband, Paul Hester, does architectural photography for numerous regional and national publications, from Texas Highways to Architectural Design and Metropolis.