by Joseph Gresser
GLOVER — The town hall here was filled nearly to capacity Saturday morning for the annual Vermont Sacred Harp convention and all-day sing. The event, is held in a different part of the state each year, and this year it was the Northeast Kingdom’s turn to play host.
For devotees of the tradition of a cappella singing that began in northern New England before the United States won its independence, the scene in the meeting room was very familiar, but an uninformed visitor may have been surprised at the seating arrangements. Instead of chairs set up in lines facing the stage, the rows formed a square with a sizeable empty area in the middle.
Shape note singers know each side of the square is for people with a particular vocal range. On one side sit tenors, across from them, altos. Basses and treble voices face each other across an empty area in the middle of the square. Until recently, treble voices would have been called sopranos, but it turns out that people’s voices don’t always align with their gender.
Shape note singing is an old Vermont tradition stemming from ….
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