In the last month or so, I've started singing a little with a five man a capella doo wop group: The Sentinels. That has led to three of the guys in the group starting to sing with my gospel quartet, doing mostly black gospel. It's a wonderful juxtaposition of two singing styles that havc a common ancestry in the black church. I met the guys in the a capella group when I invited them to sing with us at a NOMAD workshop titled Church And Street Corner Harmony. Unfortunately, my quartet was a duo that day for reasons irrelevant to my questions in this thread. It's only been since the three guys from the a capella group started singing with my quartet that the differences between the two styles has become noticeable. Specifically, there is a very different attitude toward more than one person singing the same note on harmonies. Which leads me to start this thread.

When the guys from the Sentinels heard the Gospel Messengers CD, they really loved it and have been playing it constantly since then. But, they made an immediate observation that on several of the songs, there is more than one person singing the same note. I've sung doo wop with them a little, and have witnessed first hand how carefully worked out their harmonies are. They would never sing the same note as someone else. I saw this same meticulous care for harmonies when the Beans (a folk quartet from Massachusetts) sang harmony on several gospel songs I recorded for a never-released album. They worked endlessly, perfecting their harmonies, and would almost come to blows if two of them ended up singing the same note.

Not so, in the older black gospel music. For ten years, I've sung in a male chorus in a black Baptist Church, and we commonly share notes. That's especially true of the baritones and bass. The two tenor harmonies do that much less frequently.. rarely, actually. When I look at the music in the hymnals (we learn 95% of the songs by ear) and we sing from it, I see spots where the harmonies come together during a line and sing the same note. It's also not uncommon for two of the harmonies to come together on the same note at the end of a line.

So... I was wondering what you folks who sing in a group (formally or informally) feel about harmonies coming together on a note on occasion. Does it grate on your nerves the way it does with my friends, The Sentinels? What about sea chanties? If two guys sang the same note when they were hoisting the lanyard (or whatever they do) would they be keel-hauled. Or on a chain gang, or picking cotton? Maybe I just have a more relaxed attitude toward harmonies because I come to group singing from folk and gospel. I definitely see a more relaxed approach in the old black gospel quartet singing.

The other major difference in black gospel is that the message comes first. The arrangement supports the message. That's clearly not the case in most doo wop..

I'm very interested in getting your perspective on this...

Jerry