When melody shuts down
I went last night to watch the Sacred Harp at the Fairgrinds Coffee Shop, put on by the New Orleans Afrikan Film Festival and was impressed to see a packed house. Only the film itself was about an hour too long for me because I didn’t find anything sacred in scared harp singing other than from an historical point of view. Someone said there were no black people singing sacred harp and I thought well, there’s a reason for that, there is no rhythm to this music – it sounds more like a bunch of people who can’t sing shouting out songs of fire and brimstones.
I tried to make the comparison of my experience being Sephardim (Jews from the Iberian peninsula) versus Ashkenazi (all other Jews). I grew up listening to melodic chanting and readings that were tinged with the Ladino inflection, where as to listen to Hebrew in a non Sephardim synagogue is to listen to the gutteral bock bock bock that hits the ear like a rock.
Similarly, the documentary director said that scared harp singing had more melody, was pure melody versus gospel which was in his mind prettying up the music to make it more palatable. Because why? Because it is not palatable to my ears is why.
And why I believe there are about two dozen black people in the entire world singing sacred harp – perhaps as a generalization I might say two dozen tone death black people and why blacks took gospel to a level that is transcendent.
Well I’m glad I went to see it despite the delay due to technical problems and despite having gotten a babysitter hoping to catch my nanny’s art show as well – I ended up there with only a quick stop in to Swirl where I got to see Matt’s first day there – cutie pies!
