Awake My Soul
Growing up in a Mennonite church, worship and singing meant acapella, 4 part (at least) harmony with no instruments. While I grew to love all sorts of instruments in music and even learned to play some, that experience shaped a love of vocal music in me that remains. There is nothing like a magnificent harmony of human voices in this world.
When the movie Cold Mountain came out a number of years ago, there were a lot of things I loved about it. But one unexpected thing was the use of Sacred Harp singing, something I hadn't exactly been exposed to before. It's a very old American music tradition based in the South which uses an old hymn book called "The Sacred Harp" which uses shaped notes. I was exposed to shape notes growing up, they used to use it to teach sight singing at my school. If you are familiar with the "Do Re Mi" approach, where each note of the scale has a name, it's similar with the addition of a shape to represent each interval in the scale.
Sacred Harp singing always starts with a "sing through" where the singers sing the name of the note first for their part (Do Do Do Re Mi Re Mi). It sounds rather other worldly, until you figure out what they are doing. If you've never been exposed to shape note singing, it probably still doesn't make sense. Combine that with a very joyful and boisterous singing style, not always exactly on pitch, with slides up and down to notes and the end result is quite electrifying. The tradition hasn't really died because there is enough interest that new people are taught in each generation and the singing carries on.
Anyway, there is now a documentary on this American folk art form made by a couple from Atlanta who got into Sacred Harp singing in college. It's actually produced by a couple of the guys from Third Day. The great songwriter Jim Lauderdale from Nashville narrates. It's been playing on some PBS stations, but looks like it might have come and gone before I noticed. You can buy the special edition 2 DVD set on the Awake My Soul website or through Amazon. I really need to check this out. You can also go to the web site to hear some examples.