The Raised Sixth in Minor Tunes
The most commonly remarked difference between traditional singing and the notation of the Sacred Harp books occurs in minor-mode tunes, and involves the so-called "raised sixth."
Here is the relevant background. As taught to beginning musicians, the minor scale is said to take three basic forms, which are as follows.
Natural minor (also called "Aeolian mode")
Harmonic minor
Melodic minor
Most Sacred Harp songs are notated in the natural minor, as given above. However, in Sacred Harp singing, it is common to sing the sixth degree of the minor scale, wherever it may appear, one semitone higher than it is written. In musical terminology, the minor scale that results is called the Dorian mode. In the following notation, the notes that in Sacred Harp are called “raised sixths” are shown in red.
Singing minor-key songs in the Dorian mode instead of the natural minor is felt by some to give the music greater character and strength. The effect is usually subtle, however, because the sixth degree constitutes only a small minority of the notes in a typical minor-key Sacred Harp song. Indeed, some minor-key Sacred Harp songs use a so-called "gapped" scale, in which the sixth degree does not occur at all.
Read more about this topic: Performance Practice Of Sacred Harp Music
Famous quotes containing the words raised, sixth, minor and/or tunes:
“The New Testament is remarkable for its pure morality; the best of the Hindoo Scripture, for its pure intellectuality. The reader is nowhere raised into and sustained in a higher, purer, or rarer region of thought than in the Bhagvat-Geeta.... It is unquestionably one of the noblest and most sacred scriptures which have come down to us.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“If you are willing to inconvenience yourself in the name of discipline, the battle is half over. Leave Grandma’s early if the children are acting impossible. Depart the ballpark in the sixth inning if you’ve warned the kids and their behavior is still poor. If we do something like this once, our kids will remember it for a long time.”
—Fred G. Gosman (20th century)
“Great causes are never tried on their merits; but the cause is reduced to particulars to suit the size of the partizans, and the contention is ever hottest on minor matters.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Hark, hark, with what a pretty throat
Poor robin-redbreast tunes his note;
Hark, how the jolly cuckoos sing
Cuckoo—to welcome in the spring!
Cuckoo—to welcome in the spring!”
—John Lyly (1553–1606)