NY Times on informal group singing

Subject: NY Times on informal group singing
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 22 Feb 08 - 01:42 PM

I thought this New York Times article from a couple Sundays ago would be of interest. (Was surprised there was no mention here...) It's online here, but I copy the text for our archive.

~ Becky in Tucson

A related link they give:
Web Site of the Mid-Winter Singing Festival

This is the fourth in a series about popular music that flourishes outside the commercial mainstream.
Previous Articles:
A Rural Dance Tradition in Twilight (November 29, 2007)
Plugging In to Make a Joyful Noise Unto the Lord (November 7, 2007)
Where the Game Is Just a Warm-Up for the Band (September 8, 2007)

America's Music
Shared Song, Communal Memory
By BEN RATLIFF
Published: February 10, 2008

EAST LANSING, Mich.

THEY meet on the first Monday of the month at the Universalist Unitarian Church here, not to worship but to sing. Just to sing. There are song leaders, some with a guitar or a banjo or an autoharp, but this isn't a class or a choir; the singers, not the leaders, choose the tunes. Most hold copies of a spiral-bound songbook of folk music called "Rise Up Singing." They perform songs like "Keep On the Sunny Side" and "This Land Is Your Land." No one minds a voice gone off-key.

From Hawaii to Santa Cruz to the Philadelphia suburbs, in living rooms, churches and festival tents, similar gatherings — called community sings, or singalongs — draw together the average-voiced and bring old songs into common memory.

If there is a natural opposite to gold-plated pop irony and faceless file sharing — music as the American majority knows it in 2008 — this is it. These meetings are earnest, participant directed and person to person: a slow-going, folkish appreciation of American vernacular culture.

Much of this impulse descends from Pete Seeger, who has championed the cause of group-singing for more than 60 years. "No one can prove a damn thing," Mr. Seeger said in a recent interview, "but I think that singing together gives people some kind of a holy feeling. And it can happen whether they're atheists, or whoever. You feel like, 'Gee, we're all together.' "

Amateur group-singing has been around forever, of course, at bars, churches, schools, camps and stadiums. Community sings like the one in East Lansing are pitched halfway between the ritual of the campfire singalong and the self-conscious American folk-music movement of the 20th century.

In 1945 Mr. Seeger founded the People's Song collective, which disseminated its own songbooks, thereby helping to popularize songs like "We Shall Overcome." The folk revival of the late 1950s and the subsequent rise of folk festivals, some of which included song-circles as special events, furthered the idea that singing together could reseed a homegrown culture and empower the ordinary citizen to change society.

In 1973 Peter Blood, a Quaker, political organizer, teacher and folk musician in Philadelphia, put together a homemade songbook called "Winds of the People," which quickly took off in the group-sing scene. "There was a demand for it in the circles we ran in, which were religious and summer-camp circles," said his wife, Annie Patterson. In time Movement for a New Society and other nonreligious activist organizations adopted it for singalong events.

A decade later Mr. Blood and Ms. Patterson were envisioning a more ambitious book. They compiled and cleared the rights to 1,200 songs for "Rise Up Singing," which was published in 1988. Mark Moss, editor of Sing Out! magazine, the pre-eminent journal of the folk movement, and also the publisher of the songbook, said it has sold about 800,000 copies, at $17.95 each.

It's hard to gauge the size of the community-sing movement because by its essentially casual nature it resists documenting. There is no central organization, no comprehensive Web site of regular events. Groups of the kind that use "Rise Up Singing" are not registered with the American Choral Directors Association and have no academic or institutional affiliation.

But Mr. Blood, who now lives in Amherst, Mass., said that by a conservative estimate at least 100 regular singalongs around the country use the book, in cities including Santa Cruz, Calif.; both Portlands; Rochester; Chicago; Milwaukee; and Atlanta. Some of these are easy to find in an online search; some are publicized through regional folk-music society newsletters, church bulletins or strictly by word of mouth.

In East Lansing, Sally Potter, 47, a frank, energetic presence, leads the monthly sing. In early December the event drew about 80 people. Everyone gathered in the rear of the chapel, where the ceiling is low, "so you can get the chills more easily," as Ms. Potter explained.

The chairs were arranged around an open square, the better to hear the blend of voices. The singers ranged from teenagers to the elderly; some had strong, penetrating voices, some murmured with wobbly pitch. They sang about 20 songs, including "Star of the County Down" (18th-century traditional Irish), "The M.T.A. Song" (a 1948 update of the early 20th-century American ballad "The Wreck of the Old 97") and "The Rose" (1979, soft-rock radio).

The force of their voices grew during 90 minutes, with harmony occurring in unexpected places. In between numbers Ms. Potter waited for people to raise hands and politely make suggestions.

"Page 117, 'Julian of Norwich'?" someone offered, referring to a selection from "Rise Up Singing."

"Great!" Ms. Potter responded quickly. "One of my favorite songs."

"Is it 'Nor-witch,' " another voice asked, "or 'Nor-rich'?"

"I don't know," Ms. Potter said, shrugging, though she did. "It's your song."

Some sang the word one way, some the other. But Ms. Potter does have a few guidelines, including this: If someone picks a song, and it takes more than 45 seconds for everyone to learn it, let it go. There were no nonstarters on this particular Monday. In general, Ms. Potter said, she believes that people should get to sing what they came to sing.

The combined area of Lansing and East Lansing, which has a population of about 165,000 and is home to Michigan State University, has a perfect sense of scale for community projects: it's not too small, not too big, and despite a perpetually slumped economy, it has a great deal of civic pride. It also has a famous guitar store, Elderly Instruments, a folk-music locus open since 1972; the Ten Pound Fiddle Coffeehouse, a folk-concert producer that has put on events for almost that long; and a popular local folk-music radio show on the NPR-affiliated WKAR.

Ms. Potter teaches high school history and economics in nearby Williamston. She has lived in Lansing for the last 23 years, during which time she has owned a restaurant, run the local farmers' market and a used-sporting-goods store, and toured the Midwest in a folk trio, Second Opinion. Her interest in community sings goes back to the Hudson River Clearwater Festival in 1994, where Toshi Seeger, Pete's wife, led a singalong group in a tent. Ms. Potter saw the same people returning day after day to sit cross-legged and sing, and she realized that participation was folk music's core pleasure.

In 2003 she helped found the annual Mid Winter Singing Festival, a two-day event featuring community sings that tend to draw 400 to 500 people each night. This year's festival, the sixth, was last weekend. There was a blizzard the first night, yet 340 people fought their way to the Hannah Community Center, a large building across the street from the Unitarian church.

In the evening events the singers sat in an auditorium and faced the stage, referring to set lists and lyric sheets. The song leaders were folk singers with longstanding local reputations: Claudia Schmidt, Joel Mabus and Frank Youngman.

"I've watched so many concerts, and I know what works," Ms. Potter said. "When people are singing, you're giving them the power, you're giving them the music."

Peter Blood agrees. "A lot of the experience of music in our culture is listening to someone else sing," he said. "What I find exciting about community sings is that people feel they own the music."

"Rise Up Singing" includes rudimentary chord notations but otherwise gives no indication how to sing a particular song; it is essentially used as a book of lyrics. It is not the only book used for participatory singalongs (shape-note singers tend toward "The Sacred Harp," originally published in 1844), and some singalong groups bring their own songs. But it is the breakaway hit of its kind in recent decades.

Dan Zanes, the singer and popular children's entertainer, used to sell "Rise Up Singing," which he called "the ultimate songbook," at his shows. "We don't have that many songs rattling around in our heads anymore," he said, "so we need a guide of sorts."

BookScan, which tracks sales back to 2000 through traditional bookstores, registers about 12,000 copies sold. But Mr. Moss said that most sales of the book have not come from bookstores. Song leaders order it by the boxful, directly from the publisher, or from the authors at quakersong.org.

Mr. Moss said that although Sing Out! magazine did not map or facilitate the movement, he believed that it is "much broader than 'Rise Up Singing.' "

"Often I hear from people that they hate the book for use in those settings because people keep their noses in it," he said.

Mr. Blood and Ms. Patterson organized the songs in it by theme, including "Ecology," "Sea," "Faith," "Hard Times & Blues," "Men" and "Women." (While the "Women" section is full of feminist vigor, the "Men" section is introspective, with songs like "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother" and "Let the Woman in You Come Through.") The book includes traditional black American hymns; Cuban, Mexican, Irish and Hebrew songs; Stephen Foster; Jacques Brel; the Beatles; Phil Ochs; Bob Dylan; and Stevie Wonder. There are songs for specific holidays and songs from musicals.

With groovy spot-illustrations and hand-lettered calligraphy, "Rise Up Singing" has a 1970s liberal-progressive feel and an obvious bias toward group-singability, although Mr. Blood admitted that some of the songs were included more for lyrical content than for their significance or popularity. (The couple are at work on compiling a 1,200-song sequel that will include more selections from jazz, blues and rock.)

Perhaps the book's greatest strength is its tacit proposal that there are many, many songs Americans should know by heart. In 1943, when he was in the Army, Mr. Seeger conducted an experiment on his fellow soldiers, asking them to write down the names of the songs whose words and tunes they really knew. In his own memory file he counted about 300, but he was impressed by the competition.

"I was surprised how many the average person knew back then," he said. He supposed that the number of songs crossing lines of generation, class and sex would be much lower today, outside of "Over the Rainbow" and "Happy Birthday to You."

At 88 Mr. Seeger is still a song leader, helping to run a singalong at the monthly meeting of a volunteer environmental organization near his home in Beacon, N.Y. "I like the sound of average voices more than trained voices," he said. "Especially kids singing a little off pitch. They have a nice, rascally sound."

After "Edelweiss," and a beautiful run-through of "Song of Peace," adapted from Jean Sibelius's "Finlandia," the session at the Universalist Unitarian Church wrapped up. It was almost 9 p.m., but nobody seemed in a rush to get home. A scattering of regulars stayed, packing up the cider and cookies.

One of them was Marcus Cheatham, 51, who works in public health. Earlier in the evening he introduced one of his own songs, picking a mandolin to teach the melody. Mr. Cheatham started singing about six years ago, when he joined a church choir and later a "diversity choir" at work, performing on Martin Luther King's Birthday and other holidays. The next step, he reasoned, was attending a community sing.

Asked if his knowledge of songs had grown since then, he corrected the question. "My enjoyment of songs has grown," he said. "I'm not much of a musician at all. If you enjoy it, you can jump in and do it."

"In our little community," he added, "the economy is horrible, and people are scared and sad. But you go to something like this, and you think, 'Wow, our community is resilient.' "

Margaret Kingsbury, 67, a nurse who is involved with peace groups, sounded a similar note. "I honestly believe that this is one of the ways to create peace," she said. "You go away from here, and you're uplifted."

Ms. Potter isn't surprised by such reactions. "I think it's all a result of people needing to come together and find some power somewhere," she said. "It's a political need and a spiritual need. How many people left early tonight? It's a Monday night. They're tired. But people didn't leave. That's how you know."

Subject: RE: NY Times on informal group singing
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 22 Feb 08 - 02:04 PM

I don't know that I want to bring up the "blue book" discussion again (it's certainly been argued to death here), but I think the argument comes between people who have different motives for singing. I think the experience of making a joyful noise in concert with others justifies the use of Rise Up Singing -- or The Sacred Harp, or whatever text you might want to work from -- and I think it's pretty mean-spirited to sneer at it.

The trick of course is to figure out whether your group is into that, or will permit occasional use, or really wants to do something different, and to be polite and clear about what's intended.

I have to admit to being disappointed to learn that the Quaker summer camps my son now goes to (F&W), where I went for 8 8-week summers and enjoyed lots of singing -- and where Winds of the People got its start, in part -- makes use of large, hand-lettered songsheets for group singing. We used to learn all those songs by heart! But, the kids now mostly go for 4, not 8 weeks, most probably don't go year after year, the way I did, and they probably have less exposure to singing the rest of the year. If it can get my shy boy enjoying singing out loud, I can handle it.

(My other complaint with their process is the use of songs that really aren't designed for group singing -- like David Bowie's "Space Oddity", for goodness sake! -- so of course they need help getting the words. I think that this may be a result of the young staff coming in without group singing experience... just playing their guitars and singing in a solo kind of way.)

Anyway, I was happy to see the article.

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: NY Times on informal group singing
From: Amos
Date: 22 Feb 08 - 03:07 PM

I concur that sneering at RUS in this context is below the salt. There are other reasons to sneer at it in other contexts, though. But let it be. When people are getting together to sing, they can do it as well with RUS in front of them as they can from memory, and maybe "better" (if CRS has set in). In any case the joy is for the singing, not for the use of "correct sources".


A

Subject: RE: NY Times on informal group singing
From: GUEST,Dani
Date: 22 Feb 08 - 07:41 PM

Thanks for this! Very fun.

I'm surprised they didn't say more about Dan Zanes, the high priest of communal singing.

Dani

Subject: RE: NY Times on informal group singing
From: Charley Noble
Date: 22 Feb 08 - 08:29 PM

It's really fun to read between the lines of that long post from East Lansing, Michigan. What folks from outside cannot understand is that East Lansing/Lansing has a rich folk music community, layers and layers. I was part of it for 12 years and can speak from my experience. There is the 10 Pound Fiddle Folk Club which still continued on a monthly basis. There are monthly contradances. There is Elderly Instruments, a major nation-wide retail distributor of musical instruments which employees many musicians who could not make it on their musical talent alone. There are the stars that has rocketed out of this subculture, the Sally Rogers, the Joel Mabuses, and many other talented folk musicians. Sally Potter and her group Second Opinion would have challenged any group from East Coast to West but they elected not to do the major tours.

The Rise Up Singing group at the UU church is just another way of recruiting folks to get involved in leading songs. I doubt very much if all they do is sing from the book, although I'm sure some use the book as a crutch and never progress beyond it.

Unfortunately, the folks in East Lansing/Lansing are having way to much fun to pay much attention to this obscure thread. Maybe I'll e-mail Sally and mention your concerns.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: NY Times on informal group singing
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 22 Feb 08 - 09:13 PM

I remember Sally Rogers well in that town, and also Carrie Potter and her BOSOM BUDDIES 4-female stringband singing up a storm in East Lansing. But in all the times I played my music at the Ten Pound Fiddle through the years, I never ran into Sally Potter. More power to her. Whatever book they use, or CDs they listen to to help them find the songs, more power to them!!

I've nothing but wonderful memories of the music in that town. Well deserved, and a nice article...

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: NY Times on informal group singing
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 22 Feb 08 - 09:22 PM

I had to post my comment above THREE times before it actually took and showed up in this thread! Twice, after posting it, I went into the thread and it wasn't included here. I'm left wondering what that's all about??? Anyone have an idea?

Art

Subject: RE: NY Times on informal group singing
From: Janie
Date: 22 Feb 08 - 10:11 PM

Art - I am about to decide your cyber space is in need of an exorcism:>!

Janie

Subject: RE: NY Times on informal group singing
From: Barry Finn
Date: 22 Feb 08 - 11:31 PM

Nice article but???
I wished that they had included other communities & how singing communities vary & not just focus on the PR of RUS, I'm sure it wasn't intentional. If you're going to show case an American Folk Phenomena (plural) please don't confine it to one community within one city that uses one book.
Nice article but??? thanks for the very limited exposure. Like gold digging scratch the surface but don't bother to do any homework or research and dig any deeper. But it's folk music & I suppose we/i should be glad that it gets covered at all. OK

Barry

Subject: RE: NY Times on informal group singing
From: Azizi
Date: 22 Feb 08 - 11:40 PM

Attending informal singalongs as adults, other than church and church related services, doesn't seem to be part of the experiences of 20th and 2ist century African Americans, at least as I have experienced it. Maybe this has to do with the very close association among African Americans of dancing with music making & singing.

I regret that we don't have this tradition as described in that New York Times article {preferably without any music books}, as I think it would be enjoyable and enriching on many levels for people of all ages to get together and sing old & new secular and religious songs.

I'm wondering if any Mudcatters have had experiences with or know of any singalong groups in the USA or elsewhere that are racially and ethnically diverse.

Also, I'm wondering how open these groups are to the introduction of new songs, But, I suppose that depends on the group.

Part of the reason why I asked that second question is because I just came across what I consider to be a wonderful song. If I were part of a singalong group-I'd love to learn and sing this song, at least the English version of this song-the Spanish version would probably be too difficult to teach and sing for non-Spanish speaking folks like me.

The song, Si Se Puede Cambiar, was composed by Andres Useche for the Barack Obama campaign for President of the USA. The vido of this song has English subtitles. In my opinion, this song is of such high quality that it deserves to join the ranks of such now classic 20th century "protest songs" as "Where Have All The Flowers Gone" and "If I Had A Hammer".

Here's a link to the YouTube video of that song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ky8Hvq-F0U
"Si Se Puede Cambiar"

Subject: RE: NY Times on informal group singing
From: M.Ted
Date: 23 Feb 08 - 12:29 AM

Having started out singing songs and strumming chords on my guitar as part of that self-same Unitarian-Universalist congregation, and having been a part of that folk music community, it makes me very happy to see that it lives on, and that even such an august reviewer of culture as the New York Times has taken notice of it.

Subject: RE: NY Times on informal group singing
From: GUEST,Dani
Date: 23 Feb 08 - 09:26 AM

Azizi, thank you so much for that. It's so beautiful!

Why on Earth would you wait for a singalong group that you feel comfortable in to learn this song?! As smart and caring as you are?!

And, why on Earth did I wait until today to go to barackobama.com to see what I can do in NC? A state of denial about Edwards, I guess, but that's a lame excuse.

In any case, now I'm up off my butt and signed on to help with voter registration for our upcoming primary.

You can learn the Spanish, today. Start with the chorus. I'm searching for the lyrics now, and we can learn together.

Dani

Subject: RE: NY Times on informal group singing
From: Charley Noble
Date: 23 Feb 08 - 10:39 AM

Art-

With regard to the 10-Pound Fiddle gang in East Lansing, Sally Potter was a later arrival, but we had a lot of fun mixing up her name with "Sally Rogers" and "Karrie Potter." We always thought they should form a trio, since they all played banjo and sang wonderful harmonies. Karrie Potter was also one of my housemates at Rivendell Housing Co-op and still teaches music at Elderly Instruments and does other staff work there as well.

Bob Blackman has also been a long-time member of this music community, functioning as booking manager for the folk club, running a folk music radio show, and functioning an occasional columnist (Songfinder) for SING OUT!

I need to get back to Michigan for a reunion music party some time. Occasional cards and swapping CD's is just not enough.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: NY Times on informal group singing
From: Azizi
Date: 23 Feb 08 - 11:17 AM

Dani,

Thanks, hon for the compliment.

I figure with my rusty 4 years of high school Spanish and 1 year of college Spanish, I could -with considerable effort-learn the Spanish version of Si Se Puede Cambiar {Yes, We Can Change}, verses and chorus.

But I think that it would be less intimidating for an informal singalong group that is made up of persons who are mostly unfamiliar with Spanish to learn the English version of that wonderful song.

That said, Dani, if you find the Spanish lyrics to "Si Se Puede Cambiar" please post them on Mudcat.

And btw, from a relative newbie supporter of Senator Obama's campaign to another, welcome and thanks for doing what you can to help Senator Obama get the nomination and become our next President!

Subject: RE: NY Times on informal group singing
From: M.Ted
Date: 23 Feb 08 - 12:17 PM

There was a fairly active folk music community in East Lansing before Elderly Instruments, in fact, it was the reason that Stan and Sharon set up shop there in the first place. There was the MSU Folksong Society, the Joynt, and then the Albatross all with informal connections to the MSU museum, which, over time, led to thisMichigan Traditional Arts Program

Subject: RE: NY Times on informal group singing
From: Charley Noble
Date: 23 Feb 08 - 01:58 PM

M. Ted-

I was there when Elderly Instruments set up in a basement broomcloset; I ordered a new autoharp via Sharon.

I remember the Joint in the basement of the Student Services building. I used to play an occasional short set there. But the lasting moment for me was when Friends of Fiddlers Green from Toronto swept in, with Sara Gray and Owen McBride, and blew us all away; it's one of my favorite tapes which I still am mining to this day!

Another institution was the Pretty Shakey Stringband, an ad hoc group of instrument players who would jam together on contradance tunes; for years they'd hold forth Wednesday evening at the Urban Options Energy Demonstration House. That's where I learned to chase fiddle tunes.

Then there were the Great Hodoo Bashes that were held at a farm outside of town, from sunset to sunrise.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: NY Times on informal group singing
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 23 Feb 08 - 05:25 PM

Way back in the first third of the 20th Century, movie houses featured (along with free dishes, serials, newsreels, cartoons and double features) singalongs--the words(with appropriate background photos) appeared on the screen with a bouncing white ball highlighting the words as they were sung. No blue books required.

Subject: RE: NY Times on informal group singing
From: M.Ted
Date: 23 Feb 08 - 05:40 PM

i don't remember dates and times very well anymore--but I think I first stepped into Elderly about two days after they first opened their doors, or to be more precise, "door". Wonderful folks, with great taste in music, but way too nice to survive, let alone prosper, in the cruel, capitalist marketplace;-)

As for the rest, I don't remember names that well--but there was a core of folks who would get together anywhere, on the slightest excuse, and hammer away on old timey music (the bluegrass folks split off early on).