One of our members made an 8-bit version of a Sacred Harp song!
One of our members translated a Sacred Harp song to Esperanto!
2016.?? — We'll be singing on Culture Night in Uppsala!
2016.03.?? — We were on the radio! Transcript coming soon.
2015. ?? — The club was formed!
ABOUT:
We're a small group of Sacred Harp singers who meet in Uppsala, renting out a church in order to sing about once every two weeks. For special occasions, such as Culture Night (Kulturnatt) that happens once a year, we might sing out on the street or hold singing "classes" so that new people might come join us.
What is Sacred Harp? It's old Christian (and occasionally general patriotic) American songs from around the 1700's, sung in a specific style from the southern states which basically no one knows about anymore. For example, "Amazing Grace" is in there as well as a bunch of songs that are just hymns put to music. You sing in a choir and the point is to be as loud as you can, not as good of a singer as you can, so it's a place where you don't have to feel embarrassed. The origin of this type of music is just that people had nothing to do and were uneducated about singing so in typical American fashion, they sang anyway!
Along with the general singing style (sound) being unique, it has a few minor traditions along with it, for example you always sing the song without real words first and then sing it with words after. It also has its own style of music notes which is easier to learn how to read compared to normal notes, and many people travel to singing conventions in different countries.
Despite that the songs are old American religious ones, our group has nothing to do with religion really, and our club members come from different countries (though most are Swedish). There's nothing like a tradition of praying before singing or constant talk of "Praise the lord!", it's just that we're people who like to sing the music. Beginners are always extremely welcomed, it doesn't matter if you sing really badly or have no idea how to read music.
Our group speaks English and Swedish, we also currently have one Ukranian member and one member who knows Esperanto. Even if your Swedish or English is bad, please come! (By the way, there are even Sacred Harp clubs in Japan. If you want to travel somewhere and make friends more easily, maybe try this kind of thing out!)