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 "Click for larger image")
Traveling Home
Sacred Harp Singing and American Pluralism
Kiri Miller
Cloth978-0-252-03214-1
$45.00
| Pub Date: | 2008 |
| Pages: | 272 pages |
| Dimensions: | 6 x 9 in. |
| Illustrations: | 8 Photographs |
The participatory tradition of Sacred Harp singing fosters a diverse musical community
A compelling account of contemporary Sacred Harp singing, Traveling Home describes how this vibrant musical tradition brings together Americans of widely divergent religious and political beliefs. Named after the most popular of the nineteenth-century shape-note tunebooks--which employed an innovative notation system to teach singers to read music--Sacred Harp singing has been part of rural Southern life for over 150 years. With the renewed interest in all-day participatory singing gatherings occurring in the wake of the folk revival of the 1950s and '60s, Sacred Harp singing has become a national phenomenon.
A powerful musical practice that has drawn together a diverse and far-flung community, Sacred Harp singing has roots in the American South and flourishing branches in New England, the Midwest, and on the West Coast. It has served as an emblem of American history in twenty-first century popular media, including the Oscar-winning film Cold Mountain. Meanwhile, the advent of internet discussion boards and increasing circulation of singer-produced recordings have changed the nature of traditional transmission and sharpened debates about Sacred Harp as an "authentic" form of Southern musical expression. Blending historical scholarship with wide-ranging fieldwork, Kiri Miller presents an engagingly written study of a musical movement that some have christened "a quintessential expression of American democracy."
"[One of the] most penetrating and subtle ethnographic accounts of Sacred Harp singing. I wholeheartedly recommend the book to all interested in traditional music, issues of tradition and revival, diaspora and nostalgia, and religious life in the United States."--Journal of Folklore Research
"Masterfully written, brimming with wit and interpretive energy, Traveling Home will undoubtedly become the definitive work on Sacred Harp singing. One of the best ethnographies of American vernacular music, Miller's book brilliantly succeeds in mapping the complex and shifting range of meanings that Sacred Harp singing holds for diverse participants and in showing why people are attracted to it."--David Stowe, author of How Sweet the Sound: Music in the Spiritual Lives of Americans
"Narratively evocative and theoretically sophisticated, Traveling Home depicts Sacred Harp singing traditions in compelling detail and explains how its revival succeeds in embracing seemingly incompatible strains: tradition and innovation, religious and secular participants, oral practice and musical literacy, and folk enthusiasts and musical professionals. Traveling Home is rich in stories that will delight Sacred Harp singers and in ideas that will impress social theorists. An engaging read."--R. Stephen Warner, author of A Church of Our Own: Disestablishment and Diversity in American Religion
Kiri Miller is an assistant professor of music at Brown University and the editor of The Chattahoochee Musical Convention, 1852-2002: A Sacred Harp Historical Sourcebook.
Series:
Music in American Life
Subjects:
Music / Religion / Folklore / Anthropology
