Outside Looking In: an Initial Evaluation of the 2025 Revision of The Sacred Harp
Continued from Outside Looking In, Part 1.
Issues.
Now let us consider some negative issues that I and other Sacred Harp singers have with the new book and its development.
The Revision Committee. In the fall of 2018, the Sacred Harp Publishing Company appointed a revision committee chairman, who in turn appointed the committee by April 2019. Individually, the revision committee consisted of nine Sacred Harp singers. Since this is not personal, I will not refer to their names except when absolutely necessary. Collectively, there are some questions about the committee. While they tout the diversity of their finished product, the committee itself was unusually “undiverse.” This would not be surprising thinking back to the original book company, which was created primarily by a family of singers in Alabama. However, it is surprising in 2025, with a Sacred Harp community that has spread across the globe. This “undiversity” includes: father-son, husband-wife, four close friends, and a majority also being board members. Additionally, the ratio of lifelong singers to singers from the “Sacred Harp diaspora” seems flipped backwards. Only four were lifelong singers, while five were not.[i]
In addition to the revision committee, a second committee (of five people) on book design was appointed in May 2019, chaired by a member of the revision committee.
Secrecy. The entire process was kept close within the committee and from the Sacred Harp community. However – based on Facebook comments made by various Sacred Harp singers – some of the workings of the committee were fairly well known to singers in certain circles (that is, singers who were not on the committee).[ii] The comments have been recent; at what point they were aware of the things they asserted is unknown. A certain amount of committee work being kept close is understandable, but the secrecy of this revision transcended that it seems, in a way that blurred the transparency of and muted the confidence in the process.[iii]
Two things in comparison and contrast to the last revision of 1991:
- The 1991 revision committee gave the public “ample opportunity to protest any tune being removed but no objections were recorded and we moved ahead with filling in the slots.” For the new revision, no notice was given of which songs might be removed, and no opportunity was given to object.
- The 1991 revision committee made the songs public before the new book was available: “As the publication date [of the 1991 book] drew near, Hugh began to formulate plans for an elaborate introduction of the new music to the singers.” These were published and presented to the public before the 1991 book became available. The new 2025 songs (other than by name) will not be introduced to the singers until the new book is introduced to singers.[iv]
Blind selection process. Part of the secrecy was what was called a “blind selection process.” This meant that composers submitted songs only to the chairman of the revision committee, and that he was the only one who knew the name of the composer. The other eight committee members would see a score and perhaps an identifying number – but they saw no composer names or song titles. This was to assure the composers, as well as the Sacred Harp community, that the songs chosen were chosen based on the merit of the song rather than the identity of the composer. The chair promised the songwriters and the community at least as late as May 2024, “The committee chair is presently the only person with access to records on who are composers of songs.” No doubt the chair believed this was generally true, while he must have known that other committee members knew the songs they themselves had submitted (and probably that a committee member would know if his wife submitted songs). Perhaps such an ideal was a “pipe dream” from the start. With the quantity of people attempting to compose shape note songs, and the wide network in which aspiring composers share their work, managing to keep such a process “blind” is a difficult challenge. Songs written by the committee members were obviously known to themselves. Songs published in other songbooks, The Trumpet, on Fasola Songwriters, and presented on online sources (such as SacredHarpTunes.com) were widely available, and known to those who operated in any of those networks. Additionally, there are composiums (a gathering to sing and critique new compositions) and at least one Facebook group dedicated to sharing and discussing newly-written tunes. There are people helping each other to write tunes.[v]
Additionally, committee members from the past had indicated that they could recognize the style of different composers. That is, some of them, not necessarily all. An astute committee might recognize a composer (But that is no doubt harder now, with the quantity of people attempting to compose shape note songs.)
I have identified about 60 of the 113 songs added to the 2025 revision that were published in ways that were known or could have been known. (There may be others.)* Of the added songs, at least seven were originally published in The Trumpet; online, nineteen are on SacredHarpTunes.com, a website of one of the committee members. Others were sung and critiqued at composiums, posted on Facebook, and such like. And there is the personal sharing that would only be known to the persons sharing. The older songs that were submitted were already published in old tune books. This is not proof that all of these songs were known to all committee members – but points out that they existed in ways that could have been known and recognized.
Editing process. Perhaps one of the more shocking revelations to us outsiders is the heavy editing of the songs that were selected for the new edition. In an email to a composer, the president of the Sacred Harp Publishing Company said he understood that about 50% of the songs added to the new revision were edited (in other words, for the committee or by someone on the committee). There is a question of at what point such editing becomes unethical. In my opinion, when it is done without the composer’s knowledge and changes the song to the extent that it is actually a different song than the one submitted, it becomes unethical.[vi]
See my separate post, “An example of 2025 Sacred Harp committee revising,” that visually reveals how one submission was edited. Those edits were rejected by the composer, Linda Sides. Because of that, we have a revelation about how the editing process worked – a song reworked to such an extent, and without the composer’s knowledge, that it becomes a question of ethics. Some people may want to descend into other questions, “Is Linda’s tune better than the edited tune?” “Is the edited tune better than Linda’s tune?” However, that is a diversion from the matter at hand. The clear question (and clear answer) is “Is the edited tune still Linda’s tune?” “No, it is not.”
Somewhere along the way the song Intercession by Linda Sides was edited from a hymn tune/part song to become a fuging tune instead. (Click HERE to view and read Linda’s essay about her song.) Little about this makes sense! If the song was not liked, why send it forward at all? Just set it aside and look at the other 1154 songs! It was liked – and sent forward. If the editing was decided early, why would they not contact the composer with suggested changes? If the editing was not decided early, why in the world would they edit a song that had already made the final cut in the manner it was written? Several other credible reports have surfaced of published songs receiving the same or similar treatment.[vii]
Anomalies. Some songs used in the new revision were submitted for the 1991 revision. How odd to go back and pick up songs submitted for the 1991 revision when there were over 1150 songs submitted from 2018 to 2023.
In October 2023 the revision committee announced, “The deadline for submitting songs is November 1, 2023.” How odd, then, that “Songs Added to The Sacred Harp: 2025 Edition” contains two that are listed as written in 2025 and one listed as written in 2024.
Songs removed. Without transparency, it is hard to understand the standard used by the committee for removing songs. In July 2020, a letter signed by 90 people was forwarded to the revision committee, urging them to reject “the push for removing songs that [some singers] deem offensive in some way, but rather to follow the “proven method” of “removing songs that are seldom sung.” It seems that the committee generally followed this objective method, but at times launched out to remove songs in what might be called “stylistic targeting” – songs they did not like, and/or deemed not “Sacred Harp” enough. If that is the case, the subjectivity and insufficiency of such a method can be seen in latecomers 175 years after the fact removing a song arranged by the original author and compiler of The Sacred Harp! If his songs do not set the standard (or meet the standard) for what is “Sacred Harp,” then there is no standard! See my post tomorrow for more discussion of this subject.[viii]
List of 77 songs removed, Songs removed listed with overall rank in usage, and a recording of singing the removed songs.
Miscellany. Seventeen percent of the songs included in the 2025 edition were written by members of the revision committee, the adjunct committee (on book design and production), and the wife of a revision committee member. This is probably not notable in comparison to previous revisions. However, it seems to me to be notable regarding a revision with an extremely large number of songs submitted for consideration (1155), the lack of transparency concerning the “blind selection process,” and the presence of more songs by associates of committee members.
Concluding thoughts.
No doubt the 2025 Edition of The Sacred Harp will be an initial success. Multitudes of singers are looking forward to it with open-mouthed awe. Only the swiftly rolling tide of time will tell for sure what its legacy will be.
The result of the “blind selection process” doesn’t look so blind for an outsider looking in. I have an enquiring mind. I want to know. The revision committee owes the Sacred Harp community a transparent accounting of their work. The secrecy seemed too much. The community was invited “to share input on the revision,” but that was hard to do more than generically when the process was hidden behind closed doors. The editing standard seems hard to explain. Why did they remove songs that the Sacred Harp community liked? I have an enquiring mind. I want to know. There are many other questions rolling around in my head.[ix] Perhaps the committee will begin that process of transparency at the “Revising the Sacred Harp” symposium on Friday, September 12. I will hope.
* Note added: As of 9/24/2025, I have identified six more songs that were not obvious, because the names of these songs in the 2025 edition are different from names under which they were previously published. Seven more songs I found in other places bring the total to 73 tunes available to be known by the revision committee.[x] (Twenty-five are on SacredHarpTunes.com.) There still may be others yet unknown to this author (10/22/2025, discovering 413 is an arrangement of an old song and appears in several places on YouTube, brings the total to 74).
Endnotes:
[ii] At least the people of whom I am thinking expounded on the book as if they were aware of things that seemed to be kept secret from others.
[iii] The revision committee owes the Sacred Harp community a transparent accounting of their work. Perhaps they will do so in the Symposium to be held Friday, September 12, 2025, beginning at 8:00 a.m.
[iv] https://originalsacredharp.com/2016/12/31/the-ins-and-outs-of-revision/
[v] I am not opposed to any of these helps for composers. In fact, I have been involved in helping, in creating the (now mostly useless) Fasola Songwriters listserve, and in working with Tom Malone and Will Fitzgerald to start The Trumpet. Nevertheless, we’re fooling ourselves if we do not recognize that the process might have been wearing dark glasses, but certainly was not blind. The internet is too big to keep a good (or bad) song down.
[vi] Some might argue that if the songwriter signed off on it after the fact, then it is not unethical. I would argue that “after the fact” does not right the wrong of the process itself. In a supreme case of irony, I remember one of the 2025 committee members complaining (circa 2014) that publishers of another book revised his song without permission, consultation, or notice.
[vii] And the president stated in a letter that at least 50% of the songs received some kind of editing.
[viii] I have humourously asserted that removing Soft Music and keeping The Bride’s Farewell is a significant example of the old commercial, “This is your brain on drugs.”
[ix] Why did they publicly ignore the death of book company president while being online promoting the rollout of the new book? That question is not about the book specifically, but it is some kind of problem.
[x] Not that they were equally accessible to all of the revision committee members.
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