Talk:Sacred Harp/Archives/2015

'Origin of the modern editions' and 'Other Sacred Harp books'

I have logged in to Wikipedia in quite some time, but happened to be reading the Sacred Harp article this afternoon and would like to make a few suggestions to those who are currently actively editing

In the 'Origin of the modern editions' section it is stated of Cooper "He wrote new alto parts for the many songs that originally just had three vocal lines." It is true that the Cooper book added alto parts to all songs that did not have them. It is not correct that "he wrote" them all. W. M. Cooper wrote roughly half the altos in the new book and meticulously credited the other alto composers on each page of their added work.

In this same section there is a sentence, "Cooper prepared a revision of The Sacred Harp that, while retaining most of the old songs, also added new tunes that reflected more contemporary music styles." It is footnoted with footnote 13 from Kiri Miller's book: "Miller (2004) characterizes Cooper book style thus: it "contains a greater proportion of "camp meeting" songs than the Denson book, with more compressed part-writing, chromatic harmonies, and choruses characterized by call-and-response rather than "fuging" style. Denson book singers generally say that the Cooper book sounds more like 'new book or gospel singing.'" Kiri is a scholar of note, but she is wrong about the "chromatic harmonies." Cooper explicitly states that his Sacred Harp book is diatonic music in showing that there was no need to include the chromatic scale in his rudiments. While some of the new songs show more compressed part-writing, there are no chromatic harmonies (and the newest printing in fact excludes all accidentals from any scores). Perhaps there is a more accurate quote that could be referenced for this sentence?

I don't have time to do anything now, and want to give you current editors time to this about this. But I can probably supply some quotes from a recently completed University of Florida doctoral dissertation on Sacred Harp that could fill in some of these gaps. (e.g. Sarah has an entire chapter on alto and documents the composers of alto parts in the Cooper Book).

In 'Other Sacred Harp books' there is information about the current books used by Sacred Harp singers, including The Colored Sacred Harp, by Judge Jackson. I was told by someone in the area that there are no more Sacred Harp singings in the black community in southeast Alabama. I don't recommend changing this right away, but we can watch for some written documentation of this to reference in the future and update this information.

Finally, in the 'Origins of the music' section there is a statement, "The description just given is based on The Sacred Harp, 1991 edition, also known as the Denson edition. The widely used "Cooper" edition overlaps considerably (about 60%) in content, but also includes many later songs." I wonder if comparing the Cooper edition to the Denson edition at this juncture doesn't give the wrong impression. I think that is a correct statement, but the average reader may come away with the idea that the current Cooper book is only "60%" true to the old book (which is not correct). The reason for only 60% overlap has more to do with each book cutting different 1870 edition songs rather than Cooper containing many more "later songs" than the Denson edition. The Denson book has added many later songs as well, each edition including songs by contemporary composers.

Thanks. -- Rlvaughn (talk) 23:52, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for all the thoughtful suggestions, RLV. I'll try to get back to editing this article soon; I agree it needs work along the lines you mention. Opus33 (talk) 16:57, 14 April 2015 (UTC)