Department of Music

Many individuals derive great personal benefit from participation in singing communities. In the spring of 2020, however, the activities of these communities were rudely curtailed by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. This ethnographic study considers a virtual choir organized by the music director at a church in Massachusetts. For eleven weeks, participants were invited to submit recordings of themselves singing hymns and other selections. These were then mixed into a podcast-style ‘service’ that was published on the church website each Sunday morning. Unlike most virtual choirs, the object in this case was not to create a pristine replica of a choral performance but rather to capture the untrained and unrehearsed sounds of a singing congregation. As a participant, I carefully documented my experiences throughout the ‘Hymn Singing in Isolation’ project, and upon the project’s conclusion I interviewed ten other participants concerning their own experiences. My purpose was to discover whether participation in this project served to sustain and/or create community, and to understand what role singing played in that process. Participants’ experiences were influenced by a variety of factors, including whether or not they were members of the church. However, all participants reported a bifurcated experience: While recording their contributions was often lonely and even isolating, consuming the completed podcast was meaningful and provided participants with a sense of community belonging. I propose bifurcated musicking as a frame for understanding how participants in this and other virtual choirs are able to access a communal experience. Grounding my discussion in research on congregational singing and virtual choirs, I conclude that any analysis of a virtual choir must consider the points of production and consumption as distinct experiences, and that communal sentiment arising from participation varies widely according to the way in which each individual conceptualizes their relationship to the imagined singing community.

Virtual Hymn Singing and the Imagination of Community

Sacred Harp singers the world over gather weekly to sing out of The Sacred Harp, a collection of shape-note songs first published in 1844. Their tradition is highly ritualized, and it plays an important role in the lives of many participants. Following the implementation of lockdown protocols to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, groups of Sacred Harp singers quickly and independently devised a variety of means by which to sing together online using Zoom (“zinging”), Jamulus (“jamzinging”), and Facebook Live (“stringing”). The rapidity and creativity with which Sacred Harp singers developed ways to sustain their activities attests to the strength and significance of this community of practice, and in this article I describe each modality and provide an account of how it came to be developed and widely used. As a participant-observer, I completed extensive fieldwork across these digital sites and conducted semi-structured interviews with 22 other singers. I found that online singing practices have reshaped the Sacred Harp community. Many singers who did not previously have the opportunity to participate now have access, while others have lost access due to technological barriers or lack of interest in online activities. At the same time, geographical barriers have disintegrated, and singing organizers must make an effort to maintain local identity. A stable community of singers has emerged in the digital realm, but it is by no means identical to the community that predated the pandemic. I also identify the ways in which online singing has proven meaningful to participants by providing continuity in their personal and communal practice. Specifically, online singing allows participants to access and celebrate their collective memories of the Sacred Harp community, carry out significant rituals, and continue to grow as singers. While no single modality replicates the complete Sacred Harp singing experience, together they function “like pieces in a puzzle” (as one singer put it), allowing individual participants to access many of the elements of Sacred Harp singing that are most meaningful to them.

“Like Pieces in a Puzzle”: Online Sacred Harp Singing During the COVID-19 Pandemic

My contribution is a personal account about my experiences with online participatory music-making in the first few months of the pandemic. As an old-time fiddler, I anchored a local Zoom jam and attended a Zoom-based music camp. As a Sacred Harp singer, I participated in regular singings via Facebook Live.

Department of Music

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Virtual Hymn Singing and the Imagination of Community

“Like Pieces in a Puzzle”: Online Sacred Harp Singing During the COVID-19 Pandemic

"Your network bandwidth is low": Online Participatory Music-Making in the COVID-19 Era

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“Like Pieces in a Puzzle”: Online Sacred Harp Singing During the COVID-19 Pandemic

"Your network bandwidth is low": Online Participatory Music-Making in the COVID-19 Era

Items in this collection