I’m finding writing inspiration in new places this autumn; from ancient woodlands to cathedrals to singing workshops. And the more outside my usual haunts the better. Last week, I went to experience a shape singing workshop, run or sung by the Sacred Harp.
Shape singing is an old form, plain song sung by singers who face each in a square, so all can see each other, unlike your traditional choir. There are no rehearsals and no performances; they just meet and sing, song after song after song. There’s also not really a hierarchy; anyone can stand up and call out a song number and people take up the song. Songs all come from the book, the Sacred Harp the harp is ‘the voice of the soul’, and there are no musical instruments to accompany the voices, no conductor, nothing but those uplifted voices.
There’s something extraordinarily powerful about choir; many of us feel that when we hear many voices raised together. But this was something else, a new level.
Have a read of this; https://www.theguardian.com/music/2010/sep/30/shape-note-singing
and a listen to this, for a flavour:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5g1UHZwN3ds
I was so fired up after listening to the singers in a beautiful cathedral setting that I came home and wrote nearly 1500 words straight. Sometimes you find the answers to a writing block in the oddest place…
