Monthly Shimokitazawa Shape-Note Singing

Any singing fools out there? If you live to harmonize, or you just like hanging out with musical people, you’ll love singing shape-notes, the early American musical notation that makes instant four-part a cappella easy-peasy. This tradition was once common throughout America when America consisted of just the Eastern Seaboard, but by the time of the Civil War had mostly died out everywhere except for the backmost of backwoods churches in the American South. After surviving that bottleneck, it has grown again in the past few decades into the hippest quarters of cosmopolitan America, Europe, and now Japan. The repertoire is mostly 200-year-old church hymns sung in raw, unrestrained, almost raucous tones, but we also sing secular songs of the same era, as well as old Japanese songs from the Meiji, Taisho, and early Showa periods, and a few songs in other languages too (Croatian, Hawaiian, Korean, Russian, Melanesian Pidgin). Everyone is welcome if you can help us sing, or just even listen encouragingly. Japanese singers help you with your Japanese and foreign singers help you with your English. Atheists help evangelicals find God, evangelicals help history buffs place a microphone into the 19th century, history buffs help anthropologists find Americana, and anthropologists give atheists cover to be in church. Avowed Buddhists shed tears singing “Labor is sweet if Jesus doth smile” and old church ladies compliment young people on their blue hair. It all happens organically; none of it is forced. Free your inner singer from years of being told you can’t sing and melt your voice and heart into That Sound. You’re sure to walk away with increased lung capacity and a bounce in your step.
See flyer at https://bit.ly/shimokita-7note