'Lining Out' 19th-Century Hymns

Written for members of the Charleston-Mattoon Sacred Harp Singers, before the annual Preachin' n' Singing, Lincoln Log Cabin State Historic Site, Lerna, Illinois, Aug. 23, 1998. I "found" it today while cleaning out old files in the SCI campus literary magazine's website.

In the early 1800s, "lining out" the text of a sacred song was the prevailing practice in Illinois. In a 19th-century history of Coles County, it is described like this:

There were not song-books to hand around to the congregation, but the leader would arise with his old "Missouri harmony," containing the music written in "buckwheat" notes, and announce some familiar hymn. He would then read in solemn, monotonous tones the first two lines and lead the congregation in singing them. Then the next two lines would be read followed by singing, and so on until the hymn was finished. (Wilson 627-28)

More often a words-only hymn book was used, and tunes came down in oral tradition. Otherwise, the practice as described in Coles County was followed widely. In west central Illinois, a historian drew the word picture of a circuit rider who stands in a Canton church doorway and "reads, or rather recites [a] grand old hymn. ... It is sung by every man and woman present, sung with voices clear and loud" (Hevline 663). Often called the "Old Way," the practice dates back to the 1600s and survives among Old Regular Baptists in Appalachia, as well as some Primitive Baptist congregations (Temperley 511-13). Leaders often line out the text in tones that resemble chant.

Sunday we will line out the hymn "Amazing Grace" to the tune New Britain (45t) in The Sacred Harp. While we won't sound like we were born to the Old Way, and shouldn't try to, we can suggest some of the sound and flavor of 19th-century lined-out hymnody without violating its spirit.

Much individual freedom was allowed in singing -- to use the technical term, the music was heterophonic in that it allowed "simultaneous variation" of the melody (see Cooke 8: 537). Historian Jack Larkin says, "the pacing was very slow. ... Some singers added their own idiosyncratic quavers and trills on long notes" (252-53). The practice of Old Regular Baptists today is nearly identical. Jeff Todd Tinton of Brown University, who recorded Kentucky congregations in 1992 and 1993, says:

The leader sings the very first line [of a song] and the congregation joins in when they recognize the song. After that the song proceeds line by line: the leader chants a line alone, and then the group repats the words but to a tune that is much longer and more elaborate than the leader's chant or lining tune. ... It is very slow and has no regular beat: you can't tap your foot to it. (10-11)

Singing in the old way is mostly in unison, but singers are free to improvise harmonies. In fact Paul Drummond says that when Primitive Baptists line out a song, as they do on occasion, they commonly sing it in the four-part harmony of their song books (21). More often, singers embellish or ornament the melody. Says Titon:

Singers learn by following and imitating others, not by reading notes. Melodies are highly elaborated: many syllables have three or more tones, and a great many have at least two. ... Each Old Regular Baptist singer is free to 'curve' the tune a little differently, and those who are able to amke it more alaborate are admired. Outsiders are mistaken if they think the intent is singing with unified precision and that the result falls short ..." (11)

To singers who practice the Old Way, as with those who sing the Sacred Harp, music is fundamentally a matter of the spirit rather than aesthetics. Paul Drummond cites Primitive Baptists who believe good singing is not "pretty singing" but singing with "the heart ... in it" (22). Illinoisans of the early 19th century agreed whole-heartedly.

While the Old Way may appear strange at first glance, it isn't wholly unfamiliar to traditional Sacred Harp singers as some of its ornamentation survives to the present -- especially in the South. Buell Cobb says it "help[s] the singer to 'feel out' the melody When traditional tenors slip a la in between the printed sol and fa in the first line of New Britain, they are ornamenting in the Old Way. Country artists from Hank Williams Sr. to Emmy Lou Harris and Ricky Scaggs have used similar ornaments and embellishments.

Best bet: Sing naturally. Don't try to sound like you're from Appalachia. Do what feels most comfortable -- sing in unison, or sing your usual part. Be clear and loud. Put your heart in it. The singing may not always sound pretty, but it'll be good.

Works Cited

Cobb, Buell. The Sacred Harp: A Tradition and its Music. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1989.

Cooke, Peter. "Heterophony." New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. 20 vols. New York: Grove, 1995.

Drummond, Paul. A Portion for the Singers. Atwood, Tenn.: Christian Baptist Library and Publishing Co., 1988.

Hevlin, Jesse, ed. Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Fulton County. Chicago, 1908.

Larkin, Jack. The Reshaping of Everyday Life, 1790-1840. New York: HarperCollins, 1989.

Temperley, Nicholas. "The Old Way of Singing: Its Origins and Development." Journal of the American Musicological Society 34 (1981): 511-44.

Titon, Jeff Todd. "Old Regular Baptist Songs." Songs of the Old Regular Baptists: Lined-out Hymnody from Southeastern Kentucky. CD. Washington: Smithsonian Folkways SF CD 40106, 1994.

Wilson, Charles Edward, ed. Historical Encyclopedia and History of Coles County. Chicago, 1906.