Jo Puma - Wild Choir Music
"Sacred Harp" music represents an entire body of traditional American choral music.
Why then has it not been taught in the schools?
Maybe it was not taught because the sectarian
lyrics were found to be inappropriate for public schools. Maybe it was not taught because its shape-notes were not clear enough to be easily read. Maybe it was not taught because it uses standard solfege syllables in a nonstandard way. Maybe it was not taught because the harmony is just too wild and unpolished and violates too many rules.
Well, Jo Puma has resolved 3 of the 4 possible objections:
Jo Puma lyrics still have a richness in thought, but they are egalitarian and secular.
Jo Puma still uses shape-notes, but they are crisp and clear.
Jo Puma still uses solfege syllables (Jo, Pu, Ma, Bee), but they don't clash with conventional solfege syllables.
However Jo Puma hasn't touched the notes. The music still sounds as wild as it always has with its parallel fifths and octaves, its incomplete and second-inversion triads, its open fourths and fifths, and it's pentatonic-flavored melodies stuck down in the tenor. Why? Because it's fun to sing. It's not music written for an audience, it's music written for living, breathing singers. It's a social, participatory activity. It's square-dancing for the voice. Fun as it is to hear the loud and rambunctious machinery of these songs, the real joy is in the doing.
The 80-page Jo Puma book can be purchased at amazon.
The digital book can be purchased at Sheet Music Plus.
Cheapest of all, the individual .pdf songs can be downloaded for free from the table below.
If you're already familiar with the "Sacred Harp" repertoire, you can use the table below to find the corresponding Jo Puma songs.
Click on a Jo-Puma title to download the song.
(A commission is being offered to choirs that upload recordings of their performances)
A wealth of information about Sacred Harp books, recordings, activities, singing schools and camps may be found at at the Fasola website. A wonderful free audio library of hundreds of Sacred Harp songs (including all the original songs on which the Jo Puma series is based) can be found at the Boston Sing website.
If you like the Jo Puma songs, you'll certainly like the Secular Hymnal. With the same care and respect given to the Jo Puma songs, the 144 famous hymn tunes of the Secular Hymnal have been given new, egalitarian, non-religious lyrics. They've also been given crisp, legible notation. The music is MUCH tamer than the Jo Puma songs - in fact many schools use them for choral sight-reading practice. And there's no need to buy the big 326-page book because you can download all the Secular Hymns for free from the internet. Click on the book to go there.
