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The Sacred Harp is a shape note tunebook, originally compiled in 1844 by Benjamin Franklin White and Elisha J. King in Georgia and used to this day in revised form by Sacred Harp singers throughout America and overseas. This article is a historical overview and listing of the composers and poets who wrote the songs and texts of The Sacred Harp.
The music of The Sacred Harp is eclectic in origin, and can be roughly grouped into the following categories of songs (listed chronologically).
In the examples listed below, songs are identified by the page number in the two most prominent modern versions of The Sacred Harp; the so-called "Denson edition" and the "Cooper edition". Thus, "D,C 49" means "found on page 49 of both the Denson and Cooper editions".
[Whereas in] "folk hymnody" ... [the] worshipers used ballad and dance tunes when singing the hymn texts of 18th-century writers like Isaac Watts and the Wesleys, [3] ... the campmeeting songs were folksy in text as well as tune. They are simple in diction and syntax. Their stanzas have many repeated lines and formulas and close with familiar choruses. They were designed to be caught by ear in gatherings where many people could not read or had no books. [4]
The different historical eras used different modes of composition. While the New England composers wrote mostly in four parts (treble, alto, tenor, bass), their Southern successor in the 19th century typically wrote in just three (treble, tenor, and bass). Their work was altered around the turn of the 20th century, when alto parts were added, first in the new Cooper edition (1902) and later to what ultimately became the modern "Denson" edition; the latter were written mostly by Seaborn Denson.
The words of Sacred Harp music tend to be older than the music. While some composers wrote both tune and lyrics for their songs, a very frequent practice was (and is) to rely for words on the work of earlier, mostly English, hymnodists. The composer would select hymn lyrics that metrically fit the tune. The lyrics of Isaac Watts were used for this purpose more than any other.
The following is a selected list of the hymnwriters of The Sacred Harp, arranged chronologically by date of birth.
The following is a selected list of composers represented in The Sacred Harp, arranged chronologically by date of birth.
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.
A hymnal or hymnary is a collection of hymns, usually in the form of a book, called a hymnbook. They are used in congregational singing. A hymnal may contain only hymn texts ; written melodies are extra, and more recently harmony parts have also been provided.
Philip Doddridge D.D. was an English Nonconformist minister, educator, and hymnwriter.
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.
The Southern Harmony, and Musical Companion is a shape note hymn and tune book compiled by William Walker, first published in 1835. The book is notable for having originated or popularized several hymn tunes found in modern hymnals and shape note collections like The Sacred Harp.
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.
Thomas Jackson Denson was a notable Alabama musician and singing school teacher within the Sacred Harp tradition.
Justin Morgan was a U.S. horse breeder and composer.
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.
Daniel Read was an American composer of the First New England School, and one of the primary figures in early American classical music.
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."
The Kentucky Harmony is a shape note tunebook, published in 1816 by Ananias Davisson. It is the first Southern shape-note tunebook.
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.
William Clarke Hauser was an American minister, medical doctor, teacher, composer, and music publisher.
Lining out or hymn lining, called precenting the line in Scotland, is a form of a cappella hymn-singing or hymnody in which a leader, often called the clerk or precentor, gives each line of a hymn tune as it is to be sung, usually in a chanted form giving or suggesting the tune. It can be considered a form of call and response. First referred to as "the old way of singing" in eighteenth-century Britain, it has influenced twentieth century popular music singing styles.
John Wyeth (1770–1858) was a printer in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania who is best-known for printing Wyeth's Repository of Sacred Music, Part Second, which marks an important transition in American music. Like the original Repository of 1810, Part Second used the four-shape system of Little and Smith in The Easy Instructor to appeal to a wider audience; but its pioneering inclusion American folk tunes influenced all subsequent folk hymn, camp meeting, and shape note collections. Musicologist Warren Steel sees Wyeth's Repository of Sacred Music, Part Second as marking "the end of the age of New England composer-compilers (1770-1810) and the beginning of the age of southern collector-compilers (1816-1860)."
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."