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The photographs,
documents, and audio recordings in this unit are primarily drawn from
The Sacred Harp Sing, a slide and tape show created by the Florida
Folklife Program. It includes interviews with members of the Bethlehem
Primitive Baptist Church and songs collected by Peggy Bulger on October
29, 1978 in Old Chicora, Polk County, Florida. At the time of the interview,
Bulger was chief administrator for the Florida
Folklife Program. Later, she became Director of the American
Folklife Center at the Library of Congress.
The tape
begins with an introduction to the history of scared harp singing.
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In
1884 Benjamin Franklin White, a singing school teacher living in Harris
County, Georgia published The Sacred Harp. This book of "Old Baptist"
religious folk song was to become the most popular and longest lasting
of the American shaped-note songsters. |
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The
Sacred Harp is written in the ancient "fa so la" musical system. This
scale, used in Old English music and carried to America by British
settlers, has only four notes… FA, SO, LA, MI. |
The
documents and audio section also includes a Sacred Harp program recorded
by Alton Morris on April 19, 1949 in Gainesville. The singers are under
the direction of G. P. Jackson who also explains the history of the Sacred
Harp and uses the different vocal sections of the choir to demonstrate
the sacred harp singing method.
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