Saturday, November 14, 1998

Praise the chord: Shape-note singing brings together vocalists from every denomination

By Jim Walsh

Knight Ridder Newspapers

ST. PAUL, Minn. -- A fireball sun rises over the Merriam-Lexington Presbyterian Church in St. Paul. Folks greet each other this Saturday morning with hugs and handshakes, and carry crock-pots and pie tins into the church basement. The marquee on the front lawn advertises the next day's sermon: "Who Needs God." No question mark.

There are about 100 faces, and every one wears the same giddy grin of anticipation. They've come to participate in what they all affectionately refer to as a "singing." For outsiders (and there are no outsiders in this music, as I will soon learn) that translates to a day of shape-note singing, the source material for which is found in the 150-year-old "Original Sacred Harp" hymnal.

Shape-note singing is a traditional folk music that has its origins in the Baptist churches of late 18th- and early 19th-century New England. That's the official, dusty-as-hell story. But as one newbie put it, "Shape-note singing is the rock 'n' roll of church music."

The potluck lunch is stuffed into refrigerators and warming ovens for the time being, while people mill about, recounting previous get-togethers. A theme repeats itself. They use such words as "overwhelming," "participatory," "awesome," "passion," "joyful" and "overcome." There are tales of mass weeping, told with real wonder, as the singers amble up the wooden stairs to a spacious second-story room.

Acoustically, the room, with its foundation of wood and plaster and its low ceiling, is ideal for singing. But it is also sweltering, even with the windows open wide and hand fans beating a constant breeze. A quilt hangs on the wall, raffle tickets are sold. Name tags are worn, scrawled with the singers' home states of Alabama, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Michigan, Georgia, Wisconsin, New Jersey, Minnesota. Several singers cradle water bottles in their laps. A man with a Tasmanian Devil necktie gets up in front of the group and welcomes everyone to the ninth annual Minnesota State Singing Convention.

The crowd is split into four small sections: alto, tenor, bass and soprano. Each group faces the center "hollow square," where a different song leader for each song stands in the center, pounding out the song's rhythm with his or her hands. I sit in the tenor row next to Matt Wells, a cherubic fellow who recognizes my inexperience and responds with generosity.

"This is probably as close to a traditional singing as you'll ever find in the North," he says. "One tip: If you can hear your neighbor, you're not singing loud enough."

Which is a problem, since I'm lost. My hymnal rests dubiously on my lap, and Matt on my left and another guy on my right do their best to guide me, but the shapes (which denote fa, sol, la and mi), notes and lyrics fly by too fast. Occasionally, I catch a melody by ear, and ride it like a wave, singing boldly, loudly, ecstatically. Mostly I just screw up, fake it. But from the encouraging glances I get from the other singers, I know that mistakes are welcome.

"In most areas of my life, I'm always worrying about what's happening in five minutes, what's happening in an hour, what I have to do tomorrow, what I have to do next week," says Steven Levine of Minneapolis, one of the group's most enthusiastic singers. "When I am singing, I am absolutely in the moment: I am inside the chord, I am inside the music, I am inside the feeling of the song."

Forty-five minutes go by, and many singers have taken to keeping time with their hands while simultaneously wiping sweat from their brows. I'm sitting with my back set straight, coaxing sounds out of my diaphragm I didn't know I had. I have sung punk-rock in bands in bars, at wake-the-dead volumes, but this is connected to something even more primal. There is no audience. We are singing for ourselves and for each other.

"It's overwhelming. It takes over," says Judy Mincey, a round-faced 40ish woman from Calhoun, Ga. "It takes every bit of your energy, and your mind and your concentration."

She's right. A mess of emotions floods my mind and tear ducts. It's a complicated, and entirely unexpected, reaction -- to the songs' spiritual subject matter, yes, but, more than anything, it feels like a direct response to being in such close proximity to so many boisterous voices. There is a real feeling of community, togetherness, democracy. In the songs, there is common ground and a refuge from organized religion's petty differences.

"You leave your differences at the door when you walk in," says Jim Pfau, one of the convention's organizers. "And that's one of the reasons that you can have people singing this who are Catholic, or Lutheran, or Baptist, or Agnostic or Jewish, and getting meaning out of it. It's very tough to explain, because it's not just that you enjoy the music. The words have meaning for almost everyone who sings them."

During the break, a 20ish, bleary-eyed, unshaven guy in a T-shirt tells me, "I was at Gluek's (bar) last night. We just got hammered. I was thinking, 'What am I doing?! I know I have to sing tomorrow.' "

After 10 minutes, the singers return to their seats, but I'm exhausted, so I retreat to the back of the room. A 9-year-old girl takes to the hollow square and leads the group expertly, followed shortly by Syble Adams, a 61-year-old woman who came to shape singing from her family's tradition with the Baptist churches in and around her hometown of Henagar, Ala. She chooses the hymn "Gospel Trumpet," and from the moment the voices rise up to sing it, the group feeds off Syble's good-natured, guileless energy, and vice versa. She smiles rapturously, then, astonished, stops singing altogether and drinks it in, repeatedly clutching her arms through her gray silk blouse. It is 100-plus degrees in the room, but Syble looks as if she could use that quilt.

The voices, singing about Jesus and sinning and salvation and forgiveness, reach a crescendo, and the air crackles with electricity and shouts. The hymn concludes with an eruption of applause. Syble collapses into warm embraces, meant to stave off her "cold chill bumps." It is an amazing thing to behold; as unforgettable a musical moment as I have ever been part of.

"At our church, we definitely believe in the spirit of the good Lord taking over sometimes, and filling you so full that you feel like you're just going to go right on into heaven," Syble says later. "I was freezing today. That doesn't happen too often, don't misunderstand me. It did today. It was awesome, beautiful, wonderful. The voices sounded to me like the roof was going to open up."

I'm invited, as anyone always is, to stand in the hollow square, where an easygoing guy named Gordon leads. I twirl slowly, taking in the faces beaming up at me -Syble, Matt, Judy, Steven, Jim, the newbie, the hung-over guy from Gluek's and all the rest, singing, smiling, testifying, worshiping. It is dazing, all this unadulterated well-wishing. It feels like the group is a vat of hot spinning cotton candy, and I am the stick.

The singing ends upstairs, and lunch begins downstairs. The spread is ridiculous. Pies, cookies, cakes, barbecue, pasta salads, potato salads, beans, cole slaw, watermelon, iced tea, lemonade and plenty of authentic Southern home cooking. Jokes are made, about how the food is the real attraction, how the singing is actually just an excuse to feast.

People are gathered at long lunch tables, making the verbal introductions that their bond in song didn't allow for earlier. As I head out, I vow to come back for another singing soon. I wonder aloud what these voices, raised in praise, must sound like out in the street, in the neighborhood listening below. The newbie answers, matter-of-factly:

"Like something they never hear," he says.