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"Amazing Grace" is a Christian hymn published in 1779, written in 1772 by English Anglican clergyman and poet John Newton (1725–1807). It is an immensely popular hymn, particularly in the United States, where it is used for both religious and secular purposes.
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.
The camp meeting is a form of Protestant Christian religious service originating in England and Scotland as an evangelical event in association with the communion season. It was held for worship, preaching and communion on the American frontier during the Second Great Awakening of the early 19th century. Revivals and camp meetings continued to be held by various denominations, and in some areas of the mid-Atlantic, led to the development of seasonal cottages for meetings.
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.
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.
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 New Harp of Columbia is a seven-shape shape note tune book first published in 1867 in Knoxville, Tennessee by Marcus Lafayette Swan. A successor to The Harp of Columbia published by Swan and his father, W.H. Swan, in 1848, The New Harp includes a mixture of hymn tunes, folk hymns, fuguing pieces, and anthems, along with several of Swan's original compositions. The book maintains popularity in East Tennessee, with about 20 singings in 2004.
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 Union Harmony is a shape note hymn and tune book compiled by William Caldwell. The book was released in 1837, and is part of the larger tradition of shape note singing.
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.
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.
This is a timeline of music in the United States prior to 1819.
Charles Davis Tillman —also known as Charlie D. Tillman, Charles Tillman, Charlie Tillman, and C. D. Tillman—was a popularizer of the gospel song. He had a knack for adopting material from eclectic sources and flowing it into the mix now known as southern gospel, becoming one of the formative influences on that genre.
The Hesperian Harp is a shape note tunebook published in 1848 by Dr William Hauser, with reprintings issued in 1852, 1853, and 1874. Subtitled A Collection of Psalm and Hymn Tunes, Odes and Anthems, it is named after Hauser's plantation, Hesperia, in Jefferson County, Georgia. The word "harp" is often found in the titles of such tunebooks, most famously The Sacred Harp. The Hesperian Harp was probably the largest shape note tune book of its day, containing 552 pages of music, including 36 songs composed by Hauser. It uses the four-note system of notation pioneered by William Little and William Smith.
Aaron Williams (1731–1776) was a Welsh teacher, composer, and compiler of West Gallery music, active in Britain during the 18th century.
"What Wondrous Love Is This" is a Christian folk hymn from the American South. Its text was first published in 1811, during the Second Great Awakening, and its melody derived from a popular English ballad. Today it is a widely known hymn included in hymnals of many Christian denominations.
Matilda T. Durham, later Hoy was an American composer and hymn writer. She is remembered for her shape note tune "Promised Land", first published in 1835.
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
- Jackson, George Pullen. White Spirituals in the Southern Uplands: The Story of the Fasola Folk, Their Songs, Singings, and "Buckwheat Notes", Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, Reprint, Dover Books, 1965. This is an unaltered reprint in a smaller format and size of the original 1933 edition.
- Scott, Joseph Dennie, The Tunebooks of William Hauser, D.M.A. thesis, New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, 1987.
