The Western Massachusetts Sacred Harp Community

The Western Massachusetts Sacred Harp Community has been hosting annual conventions since 1999 and holds informal weekly singings throughout the year at Helen Hills Hills Chapel at Smith College on Tuesdays from 7-9 PM. On the first Tuesday of every month, a member of the community teaches a singing school from 7-8 PM designed to introduce new singers to the tradition. But newcomers are welcome at any time, at any singing, for any amount of time they wish to attend.

We sing from The Sacred Harp, an anthology of non-denominational Protestant music in four harmony parts that contains tunes of various genres, styles, and origins. Open the book and find stark early American hymns, popular songs appropriated for sacred use, intricate fuguing tunes with interwoven vocal entrances, major-key piece about suffering, minor-key pieces about joy, and countless tunes about death. All of them are printed in shape notes, a type of musical notation developed in the early nineteenth century to facilitate social singing by making it easier to learn to read music.