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Shape notes are a musical notation designed to facilitate congregational and social singing. The notation, introduced in late 18th century England, became a popular teaching device in American singing schools. Shapes were added to the noteheads in written music to help singers find pitches within major and minor scales without the use of more complex information found in key signatures on the staff.
Sacred Harp singing is a tradition of sacred choral music that originated in New England and was later perpetuated and carried on in the American South. The name is derived from The Sacred Harp, a ubiquitous and historically important tunebook printed in shape notes. The work was first published in 1844 and has reappeared in multiple editions ever since. Sacred Harp music represents one branch of an older tradition of American music that developed over the period 1770 to 1820 from roots in New England, with a significant, related development under the influence of "revival" services around the 1840s. This music was included in, and became profoundly associated with, books using the shape note style of notation popular in America in the 18th and early 19th centuries.
A singing school is a school in which students are taught to sightread vocal music. Singing schools are a long-standing cultural institution in the Southern United States. While some singing schools are offered for credit, most are informal programs.
William Walker was an American Baptist song leader, shape note "singing master", and compiler of four shape note tunebooks, most notable of which are the influential The Southern Harmony and The Christian Harmony, which has been in continuous use.
Benjamin Franklin White was a shape note "singing master", and compiler of the shape note tunebook known as The Sacred Harp. He was born near Cross Keys in Union County, South Carolina, the twelfth child of Robert and Mildred White.
Lowell Mason was an American music director and banker who was a leading figure in 19th-century American church music. Lowell composed over 1600 hymn tunes, many of which are often sung today. His best-known work includes an arrangement of Joy to the World and the tune Bethany, which sets the hymn text Nearer, My God, to Thee. Mason also set music to Mary Had A Little Lamb. He is largely credited with introducing music into American public schools, and is considered the first important U.S. music educator. He has also been criticized for helping to largely eliminate the robust tradition of participatory sacred music that flourished in America before his time.
Wilson Marion Cooper of Dothan, Alabama, was a notable musician and music teacher within the Sacred Harp tradition. Marion Cooper was born in Henry County, Alabama, the son of W. S. and Elizabeth Ann (Oates) Cooper. He was a cousin of Alabama governor William C. Oates.
James Landrum White was a shape note singing teacher, composer, and a reviser of his father's shape note tunebook known as The Sacred Harp.
Joseph Stephen James, of Douglasville, Georgia, was a lawyer, community leader, shape note singer, composer, and a reviser of the tunebook known as The Sacred Harp.
David Patillo White (1828–1903) was a shape note singing teacher, composer, and a co-issuer, with his father, of the 1870 Sacred Harp. He was the second child of Benjamin Franklin White and Thurza Melvina Golightly, whose other children were William Decatur, Robert H., Mary Caroline, Nancy Ogburn, Thurza Melvina, Benjamin Franklin, Jr., James Landrum, and Martha America.
The Southern Musical Convention was the first Sacred Harp musical convention, organized by B. F. White and others in 1845. It was formed at Huntersville in Upson County, Georgia.
George Pullen Jackson (1874–1953) was an American educator and musicologist. He was a pioneer in the field of Southern (U.S.) hymnody. He was responsible for popularizing the term "white spirituals" to describe the "fasola" singing.
The Christian Harmony is a shape note hymn and tune book compiled by William Walker. The book was released in 1866. It is part of the larger tradition of shape note singing.
Ananias Davisson was a singing school teacher, printer and compiler of shape note tunebooks. He is best known for his 1816 compilation Kentucky Harmony, which is the first Southern shape-note tunebook. According to musicologist George Pullen Jackson, Davisson's compilations are "pioneer repositories of a sort of song that the rural South really liked."
James P. Carrell , of Lebanon, Virginia, was a minister, singing teacher, composer and songbook compiler. He compiled two songbooks in the four-shape shape note tradition.
The Southwest Texas Sacred Harp Singing Convention is an annual gathering of shape note singers. Songs are sung a cappella from the Sacred Harp tune book. The convention was organized on April 28, 1900, at the Round Top School House, in Caldwell County, Texas, as the South Union Singing Convention. It is the second oldest continuous Sacred Harp convention in Texas. Several older conventions are no longer extant.
The Alabama Sacred Harp Singers were any of the informal groups participating in four recorded Sacred Harp singing sessions in Alabama in the 20th century, who were thereafter credited by that name as artists or performers in the published versions of those recordings.
Alfred Marcus Cagle was an American hymnwriter known for his activities with the Sacred Harp movement.
Jarusha Henrietta Denson Edwards, better known as Ruth was a figure in the Sacred Harp movement.
The Shenandoah Harmony is a 2013 republication of the works of Ananias Davisson (1780–1857) and other composers of his era, in the format used by modern shape note singing groups. Although a number of new shape note tune books were compiled and published in the two decades leading up to the publication of the Shenandoah Harmony, this volume is notable as "the largest new four-shape tunebook published for more than 150 years." The book is named after Shenandoah Valley, whose importance in the emergence of a distinctive Southern shape-note singing tradition has been noted by many musicologists. Authentic South reporter Kelley Libby of WFAE, attending an all-day singing in Cross Keys, felt "transported to the Shenandoah Valley of the 1800s."
References
- ↑ Doris Dyen, The Role of Shape-Note Singing in the Musical Culture of Black Communities in Southeast Alabama. Ph.D. thesis, University of Illinois, 1977.
- 1 2 Joe Dan Boyd, "Judge Jackson". The New Grove Dictionary of American Music , 2nd edition.
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