Regular Local Singings

Compiled by Robert Hall and Ella Wilcox

North Carolina

Fletcher (halfway between Asheville & Henderson):
Songbook : Christian Harmony, Deason-Parris Revision
Regular Date: First Tuesday of the month, 7 to 9 PM at Calvary Episcopal Church. Contact Dan Huger, 828-274-8899, e-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it '; document.write( '' ); document.write( addy_text28354 ); document.write( '<\/a>' ); //-->\n This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

http://www.mcsr.olemiss.edu/~mudws/regular.html

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The Laurel Theater is located on the corner of 16th and Laurel Avenue near the University of Tennessee. From I-40 take the 17th Street exit (#387), turn right/South (towards the University) on 17th St., turn left on Laurel Ave. (about five blocks), go one block to 16th and look for the Victorian church on the Southeast corner.

History

Fort Sanders is the heart of old time residential Knoxville, evocatively described in Knoxvillian James Agee's "A Death in the Family." And the Laurel Theatre is for many local music lovers the heart of Fort Sanders.

Listed in the National Register of Historic Places, the building stood for many years as the Fort Sanders Presbyterian Church, constructed in 1898.

Today the Laurel Theatre is a performance center and home of Jubilee Community Arts, an organization dedicated to the preservation and advancement of traditional music and art forms of the Southern Appalachians.

While many buildings in Ft. Sanders and in Knoxville have crumbled under the wrecking ball or yielded their integrity to piecemeal renovation, the Laurel Theatre has stayed alive as an ongoing and growing institution. When the original Presbyterian congregation became inactive, an ecumenical urban ministry was founded to serve the community. The Epworth Ecumenical congregation held services in the building for many years.

Wednesday, November 27, 8 p.m.

Annual Thanksgiving Potluck and Harp Singing

Epworth Old Harp

Jubilee Community Arts and the Epworth Old Harp Singers host our annual Thanksgiving get together. A potluck supper will be followed by a community singing using, of course, the New Harp of Columbia. Shape note singing has a long history in East Tennessee and the Epworth Old Harp Singers are actively carrying on that tradition. If you are new to shape note this is a good time to get involved.

Free, bring a dish and be prepared to sing

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Don't You Remember You Told Me
You Loved Me Baby?

A Conversation with Bonnie Bramlett
by Jill McLane Smith

Summer 2001

How did you first become interested in singing and who were your early singing influences?
I come from a family of singers. I do not remember not being a singer. I guess my very first influences were my family, my mom. Mahalia Jackson and Pearl Bailey were the first black singers I saw on TV, and I knew that I wanted to do that. This was the old, country church, gospel music. With shaped notes. It is not really bluegrass gospel, it was just old gospel music.

http://www.swampland.com/main/section/gritz/

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White Spirituals from the Sacred Harp
Alabama Sacred Harp Convention

Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days 

from $14.84

• Audio CD (December 8, 1992)
• Original Release Date: 1994
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: New World Records
• ASIN: B0000030F2
• Average Customer Review:
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: 46,283

Sacred Harp music is authenicately American. The shaped notes are intended to allow individuals who do not read music to read the Sacred Harp music. It also allows the individual pitching the music to move the music into the range of the singers rather than using a true pitch. The melody is in the tenor line which is sung by both genders. The music has an open harmony - altos may float above sopranos or below tenors for example. The beat is strictly kept and there is little variation in volume - this is not your standard choral music.

The hymn tunes used are traditional - you will recognize some of them. The words are traditional - heavy into the Isaac Watts and company hymns.

While I'd always recommend standing in the center of a singing group as an introduction to this tradition, this album is an acceptable second choice. With any luck it will make you want to sing the music as well.

New York Pinewoods Folk Music Club

(Folk Music Society of New York, Inc.)

Traditional Music is Alive and Well in New York

Sun, November 17th; 2:30pm: Sacred Harp Sing, Co-sponsored and hosted by St. Bartholomew’s Church in Manhattan, on the 3rd Sunday of each month through June, 2:30 to 5:30pm, 109 East 50th St. We continue the colonial American tradition of lively (high-volume, up-tempo) four-part, unaccompanied gospel singing.  Shaped notes, indicating fa-so-la intervals, make sight-reading easy. Instruction provided; beginners welcome! Sacred Harp hymnals available for loan or purchase. No fee; contributions collected. Free parking (Distinctive Parking, 51st between Lexington and 3rd Avenues; your church ticket is good until midnight)!  Questions: Gail Harper 212-750-8977.

http://www.folkmusicny.org/

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OBSERVATIONS ON DR. HAROLD B. SIGHTLER’S EARLY MINISTRY
AND THE HERITAGE OF TABERNACLE BAPTIST CHURCH
JAMES H. SIGHTLER, M. D.
SIGHTLER PUBLICATIONS

     These comments are set down to provide background detail to the history of the founding of Tabernacle Baptist Church and its continuance in the way of old time religion. My Dad became pastor of Mauldin and Pelham Baptist churches in 1943. I remember Mauldin as a typical country Baptist church with a white frame clapboard building. As I recall there were curtained partitions that set off Sunday school rooms at both churches. Both buildings were of course unairconditioned. I remember sitting in church at Mauldin and looking out the open windows at farm fields nearby and at mules and wagons tied to trees in the churchyard. There were more cars than wagons but the wagons were well represented; tires and gasoline were both rationed. There was very little grass in the churchyard as was the case with many of the farmhouses. I remember the noise of Mitchell B-25 bombers and other planes heard often on Sunday from training flights at Donaldson Air Force Base, which was only about 5 miles away.

…

 Later on when he was pastor at Pelham and Tabernacle we always listened every weekday to broadcasts of the Blue Ridge quartet and on Saturday night to singing broadcast from the Tremont Avenue Church of God and woke on Sunday morning to the sound of the Hi-Neighbor Quartet on the radio from Anderson. To grow up in a Baptist household in Greenville in those days was to be immersed in the best of Gospel music in its golden age.

     There was a shape note singing school at Pelham Baptist Church, at that time it was called Corinth Baptist Church, as early as 1907, and most likely others before that. Horace Jones, who sang on the Bright Spot Hour from about 1945, and his brother Lloyd, who led singing at Pelham, both learned what music they knew from these periodically held shape note schools at Pelham. In the 1930's the Gainus Brothers had taught shape note schools there. J. L. Williams of Victor Baptist Church in Greer also held a singing school there.

     There were at least two church quartets at Pelham, the Harmony Quartet and the Gospel Four. Horace and Lloyd sang at times in these quartets. The Harmony Quartet consisted of Hubert Kirby, J. L. Jones, Horace Ward, and John Cox. Mrs. Paul Greer (Louise, daughter in law of Henry Greer, who was Pelham's chairman of the board of deacons) played for the Harmony Quartet. She also played the organ for Horace's solos before Minnie Brewer took over that task. Horace and Lloyd Jones also sang as a trio with Wyatt Garrett.

     I remember hearing my dad say that he first heard Looking for a City at Brightwood Baptist Church in Greensboro where H. P. Gaulden was pastor, about 1948. He was so impressed with their singing and with that particular song that he had it sung at Pelham, from small paper back Stamps-Baxter songbooks that were used to supplement the Broadman Hymnal. At that time the Broadman was available in shape note form, and naturally that was what we had at Pelham.

    As early as 1950 the Baker family of the Parker Community in Greenville, the center of the mill communities, began to attend the late Sunday night services at Pelham singing Southern Gospel music. They also sang live on the Bright Spot Hour. John Baker led the group and Betty Baker played the piano. Charles Baker, along with his brother Bill, also sang.

In 1952 Bill and Charlie Baker and Hubert Kirby and Harold Taylor formed the Tabernacle Quartet. Ruth Baker, Bill's wife, played the piano for this group. Several shape note singing schools were held at Tabernacle in the early days, taught by Rupert Craven, who was a representative of J. D. Vaughn Publishing, and by Jim Poole of Renfrew at Travelers Rest. Harold Taylor was a charter member of Tabernacle who had come from Pleasant View Welcome Baptist Church, and was appointed as songleader. He and John Baker chose the first hymnbook, the shape note Church Hymnal, the old red book. This book alone was used until 1962, when Harold Taylor left to join Triune Baptist Church, which eventually became White Horse Heights Baptist Church. Three other special singers in the early days were Winkie Redmond and Frank Lark and Furman Nelson, playing bluegrass and country gospel music. They helped me to learn to sing and play a guitar.

…

A new auditorium seating 1500 people was completed in 1957, and, as growth and success followed, it became one of the leading churches in the fundamentalist movement. Tabernacle Christian School was founded in September 1960; the Bible College followed in 1963, and, because of that development, Tabernacle was no longer off limits as Pelham had been. My dad was given an honorary doctorate at Tennessee Temple in 1964. Then very slowly and gradually, as the schools were staffed, the 'Cultural Emphasis' syndrome, the pride of life of I John 2:16, began to achieve, by infiltration of some who disparaged the old time camp meeting shape note singing, what it had been unable to do at Pelham by the fiat that Dr. Ruckman and a few others had ignored. As a result a roundnote songbook called Hymns of the Tabernacle, published by the BBF and essentially equivalent to the All-American Hymnal, was adopted about 1964, and the old time singing schools disappeared. But the old Church Hymnal, which still is and always has been in use at Gospel Light Baptist Church in Walkertown, NC and many other country churches in the South, hung on, by a slender thread as it were, and despite agitation against it, until 1978. After that it was discarded completely. Looking for a City, and other old time songs, were not heard again at Tabernacle for12 years until the Church Hymnal was brought back for both choir and congregation in 1990.

…

http://tbc.sc/school/

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"HOW TO PLAY PLECTRUM BANJO"

©1996 DONALD F. STEVISON

http://www.banjobook.com/AUTHOR-Stevison/Stevison-Strumming.htm

includes a chapter on Shaped Note notation still used in Banjo notation and known as Tablature or Tabs Notation

From a Message Board ...

When venturing down the road of jazz and blue's on the banjo, it looks
 like the books for instruction are few and far between in tablature. Is learning
 "music" for the banjo and all those funny shaped notes, a huge difficult
 transition or does tablature sorta get a banjo picker into shape for that
 next step - reading music? Thanks, Bill

> Actually, the next step "should" be, learning to play music. Probably the
> best way to play bluegrass banjo, is to learn as many if Earl Scruggs, licks
> as possible until you them like the back of your hand, and pick them without
> thinking, then playing a bluegrass song from tab is simple because you have
> all the basics. Tab for banjo is no more than a map telling you which order
> to put your basic building blocks (all those Scruggs licks) in. This is
> probably more true with Scruggs picking than any of form of music I play, as
> Earl's songs are pretty much all the same old licks arranged in different
> order (which does not mean to say that I don't love it none the less).
>
> Tablature actually "is" music, according to some historians, it's been
> around as long as the more commonly recognized "standard" musical notation.
> There is no "step up" from tablature to standard musical notation. Standard
> musical notation just simply doesn't fit stringed instruments all that well,
> since there are so many ways to play the same note. If there is a difficulty
> in transitioning to standard musical notation, it is that there is no viable
> means of relating the note on paper, to a fret position on your banjo, since
> every note has at least 4 different positions on your banjo. That being the
> case, you will need to use your ear, and a great deal of knowledge of your
> fretboard to be able to read the note and translate it to a usable finger
> position on your fretboard. Ie, you will need a deep knowledge of your
> major, minor, blues, pentatonic, etc scales. You get the picture :-)

 URL No longer available

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RELIGIOUS MUSIC- From the late 1700's religious music was sung without harmony. There were rarely any songbooks. The songs had to be powerful melodies with simple words so everyone could sing along. By the mid-1800's itinerant song leaders and music teachers traveled through the South teaching shaped note singing. Shaped notes were an easy way to learn music without having to learn about sharps and flats. The songbooks were written in four-part harmony. "Sacred Harp" and "Christian Harmony" singing groups can be found today throughout the South and are not part of any denomination. By the turn of the century many inexpensive shaped note songbooks were used in rural mountain churches. The songs had "modern" chordal arrangements and were sung in four part harmony and included more secular themes.

SONG: KEEP ON THE SUNNY SIDE-(BF)-made famous by the Carter family. THIS LITTLE LIGHT OF MINE (BF)-African-American gospel song.

http://www.davidholt.com/music/rootsmtnmsc.html

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William "Singin' Billy" Walker
Preacher and Inventor of shaped note notation - SPARTANBURG

In the early 1800's, "Singin' Billy" Walker created a system of shaped notes that allowed rural folks who had little formal music education sing songs from a hymnbook. Before that, hymn tunes were learned and committed to memory later to be sung to text in a hymnal. The publication of "Southern Harmony" in 1835 sold over 600,000 copies and not only revolutionized church singing in the rural south, but helped to preserve hymns that might otherwise have been lost. Walker's partner, Benjamin Franklin White, moved to Georgia and wrote a competing shaped note hymnal, "Sacred Harp" which overtook "Southern Harmony in popularity and influence.

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Introduction

to the 4th Edition of

The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion

…

Let us look briefly at how this form of musical notation arose and attained its popularity, which took place in the context of a remarkable movement in popular education known as the singing school movement. Early in the eighteenth century, New England ministers became concerned about the poor quality of congregational singing in their churches, which resulted from a shortage of printed music and of people who could read music.12 What was needed was a means of introducing substantial numbers of untrained people to the elements of music, and for that purpose the ministers made use of the evening "literary school," already well established in New England.13 In order to establish a music curriculum for the singing school, it was necessary to provide textbooks, which the Harvard-trained ministers were well prepared to do.14 Thus, the first tunebook printed in the American colonies was John Tufts's An Introduction to the Singing of Psalm Tunes, dating from the 1720s.15 It was published, as was the contemporary Grounds and Rules of Musick Explained, by Thomas Walter, for the singing schools. These books contain both theoretical materials and tunes for singing. The Tufts book is the more important of the two to us, because it is in nonstandard notation. Instead of a note head, the initial letter of the solmization syllable was printed on the staff, acting as a mnemonic device for solmization. This apparently was successful, as the book seems to have gone through several editions. Although there apparently were isolated instances in Europe of similar notation, it seems likely that Tufts developed the device independently. It was a pragmatic approach to the problem of teaching music to beginners. This pragmatism, which seems to be universally recognized as typically American, continued in the attempts to teach more music to more people; to make it more accessible to more people; to make it more "democratic," as many old-time singing school masters told me in interviews several years ago.16 From its beginnings in the 1720s, the singing school spread quickly throughout the colonies, and after the Revolutionary War migrants to the frontier took the singing school with them, not only because it filled a religious need but because it had become an accepted and valued means of social intercourse in most communities.17

Toward the end of the eighteenth century, a relatively obscure storekeeper in Philadelphia, John Connelley, seems to have developed a system of using geometric shapes for the heads of notes, a system which was to revolutionize music teaching.18 He developed only four shapes, for at that time scales were sung using only four syllables. These are the shapes used in the Southern Harmony, known as fasola notation. The right triangle is fa, the circle is sol, the square is la, and the diamond is mi. Although these shapes had been used in various notations since medieval times, this was the first systematic use of them together to indicate degree of the scale, using their individual shapes as position indicators. The complete scale was then sung from bottom to top; fa, sol, la, fa, sol, la, mi, fa. So only the four shapes were needed. They were first used in the Easy Instructor, about 1800, which conveys the purpose of the system through its name.19 By the time the Southern Harmony appeared, fasola notation had been in existence a third of a century and was in widespread use.

Two other things were happening around the turn of the nineteenth century that were to have great impact on American music. One of these was the call for the reform of music used in churches, which had the effect of gradually replacing indigenous music with European compositions and inferior imitations of those models by American composers. These shifts of taste can be seen in succeeding editions of various tunebooks of the period.20 As the seaboard churches become more and more sophisticated by their own standards, the native musical product they were discarding found a home to the south and west on the frontier of the expanding nation.

The other important development, which contributed to the acceptance on the frontier of the native idiom being rejected in the East, was the tremendous religious fervor rising along the Kentucky-Tennessee border, which was expressed in the camp meetings. These great assemblies sometimes brought together thousands of people for extended periods; they needed just the kind of religious music that was being discarded along the seaboard. Happily for the participants - and for the musical historian - the music, the hymns, and the notation seem to have been considered an entity, for all were warmly embraced in the camp meetings. It is in this milieu that we find some of the earlier tunebooks of the nineteenth century, and it is certainly out of this that the Southern Harmony came.

The religious theme of the camp meetings disassociated itself from the tenets of organized religious bodies in favor of a return to the simplicity of New Testament authority for all religious matters, including unaccompanied congregational singing as practiced by the New Testament church. Thus, the rugged, highly individualistic music of the native American composer, the popular paraphrases and versifications of Watts, the Wesleys, and others, and the use of singable, easily learned and remembered tunes with words of the same characteristics, all fit perfectly the needs of the frontier. In a short time, as singing schools became better established, the pragmatic shape notes that had accompanied much of this music in its tunebooks were in common use as an efficient way of teaching the reading of music.

One other factor contributing heavily to the ready acceptance of shape notes in the South and West was the summary dismissal of all things American by those who, in the 1830s, introduced music into the public schools in the East.21 The advocates of public-school music thus disregarded a well established corpus of music and lyrics as well as pedagogical tools and techniques. These very materials. developed in the singing schools, had prepared the public to accept music in formal education, but these leaders consciously adopted different methods, theories of learning, and materials, rejecting anything indigenous. The publication of the native tunebooks was at this time a thriving industry; when it was denied participation in the formal classrooms of the East, as it recently had been rejected in the urban churches, it had to move with the frontier to survive - although it never left the rural areas of the seaboard. It is unfortunate for later generations that all this native material was discarded by the schools; especially is this true of shape notation, which is the single most valuable device ever developed for the teaching of music reading.22 This same notation, however, like the music of American composers and the singing school itself, was welcomed by popular sentiment on the frontier, where it became an integral part of life.23

This is a brief and perhaps simplistic summary of the conditions giving rise to the Southern Harmony, which came along at precisely the right time in its geographical appeal, its lyric content, its musical astuteness, and its pedagogical simplicity.

It is evident that William Walker foresaw in 1854 the coming demise of fasola notation and the necessity of a seven-syllable solmization and a seven-shape notation. In the rather poignant "On the Different Plans of Notation" (p. xxi) he speaks of the several methods then in use and provides examples of them for "a very respectable number of my patrons" who were partial to their use. Although he was soon to forsake fasola notation, Walker seems to be resisting the inevitable change, for his final paragraph denies that one must use seven shapes to sing correctly. On the basis of his twenty-five years of teaching he defends his "patent note" (i.e. shape note) pupils, who "learn as fast, and sing as correct as any." Then stating that "the main thing is to get good teachers [italics his]," he suggests that with proper teaching "the various plans of notation and solmization may be considered more a matter of taste than necessity."

http://www.sparklenet.com/1_Visitors_Center/Local_Notables/Music.htm

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This is a description of the Regular Baptists of Kentucky and there singing practices today, but it well describes the “Old Way” practiced before the advent of “Regular” or “New Light” singing in New England churches where “fasola” notation first saw popularity.

Old Regular Baptists
of Southeastern Kentucky:
A Community of Sacred Song
by Jeff Todd Titon

Old Regular Baptist singing has a lot in common with other Protestant hymnody. The whole congregation is invited to sing. Their aim is to praise the Lord. The songs are sung in church, at memorial meetings, baptisms, and in homes. They are sung by men, women, and children alike. But Old Regular Baptist singing also has its own particulars. The singing is very slow. It gets along without a regular beat; you can't tap your foot to it. The melodies are very elaborate, and they come from the old Anglo-American folk music tune stock, not from classical music or from popular songs written to make money. The group sings in unison, not in parts (harmony), but each singer is free to "curve" the tune a little differently, and those who are able to make it more elaborate are admired. People unfamiliar with this way of singing are mistaken if they think the singers intend unified precision but fall short; on the contrary, the singing is in step and deliberately just a bit out of phase - and this is one of its most powerful musical aspects.

Like almost all Christian hymns, Old Regular Baptist congregational songs consist of rhymed, metrical verse in a series of stanzas to which a repeating tune is set. Song books are kept at the pulpit and passed around to the song leaders. These books have words but no musical notation. The oldest lyrics are the 18th-century hymns, written chiefly by familiar English or American devotional poets and hymn writers such as Isaac Watts. These fill their two favorite song books, the collections Sweet Songster and the Thomas Hymnal. The leader sings the very first line, and the congregation joins in when they recognize the song. After that, the song proceeds line by line: the leader briefly chants a line alone, and then the group repeats the words but to a tune that is much longer and more elaborate than the leader's chant or lining tune. Music historians call this procedure lining out.

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2002 SEPT 8: SHAPE NOTE SINGING

Shape Note, or Sacred Harp singing is a form of communal singing developed in the American south in the early 1800s. The name, Shape Note, comes from the shapes used to differentiate the notes; a right triangle for fa, an oval for so, a rectangle for la, and a diamond for mi. The music is written in three or four part harmonies: the tenor takes the main melody, and the bass, alto and soprano have their parts. There is no instrumental accompaniment.

Shape note singing came out of the English idea of the singing school. Singing schools were developed as a way to improve the sound of congregational singing. Many teachers experimented with using ‘shaped notes’ to make it easier for singers to follow their own part through complex harmonies. The Sacred harp shapes became very popular, they were easy and quick to learn for both those trained in music, and those that were not.

Shape note music is religious but it is never sung as part of a service. Instead, sings are special occasions, and often all day affairs. In the course of a session over one hundred songs may be sung. The participants are the only audience. There is a leader who keeps time and selects the music but there is tremendous room for variety and spontaneity. Shape note singers use relative pitch based on an initial pitch selected by the leader, unlike conventional music, which uses absolute pitch. Tempo is set by regional preference. Singers are also free to switch parts; altos and sopranos regularly sing each other’s parts. The emphasis of Shape note singing is on enjoyment of the singer, not quality of music, so participants are not turned away for having poor voices.

Shape note singing is often associated with rural Alabama, for that is where Alan Lomax went to record it, but it was prevalent throughout the south in the late 1800s. Today there are groups all over the US that sing regularly, including several groups in Colorado.

Recomended Media:

The music for this show was taken from volumes 9 (Harp of a Thousand Strings) and 10 (And Glory Shone Around) of Alan Lomax’s Southern Journey collection, and from the Library of Congress Recording, Sacred Harp Singing.

If you are interested in taking part in a sing, the national website is http://www.fasola.org/ and has links to regional sites, including the Rocky Mountain groups.

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VH1 Save the Music:
VH1 Music Studio
Cable in the Classroom

Lessons for Music and Social Studies Classes, Middle School and High School

American Music Styles

A form of white spiritual known today as the Sacred Harp spiritual or shape-note hymn came into being during the same period (1800-1860) that gave rise to the African-American spiritual. The different-shaped notes were used as a method of learning how to read music. Perhaps the best known song in this style is "Amazing Grace," written by a repentant slave trader who dedicated the rest of his life to fighting the evils of slavery. From this tradition in the 1920's gospel music was created which often featured quartets or family bands who accompanied themselves on guitars, Autoharps, fiddles, or string band instruments.

Fiddle tunes such as reels and jigs were a staple of life in 19th century America. Tunes such as "Turkey in the Straw" or "Arkansas Traveler" were played for dances and at “singings” then eventually used in stage productions such as the minstrel show. Today these same fiddle tunes are still part of a branch of country music called bluegrass, which features fiddle, guitar, mandolin, and the five-string banjo--an instrument that crossed over from African-American music.

In the 1920's when phonograph records became practical and radios found a place in most American homes, a new style of European-American music was born. Record promoters went into Appalachia and the Southwest to find new recording talent in the spiritual or bluegrass traditions. The new style was dubbed hillbilly, and the name stuck for about twenty-five years. The southeastern Appalachian style followed the lead of the Carter Family, and family bands sprang up often featuring duets by brothers or sisters. The southwestern region followed the lead of Jimmie Rodgers and developed a Texas cowboy style as sung by the famous movie cowboys Gene Autry and Roy Rogers. As the 1930's turned to the '40's, the name hillbilly gradually gave way to the term country and western (which showed the original southeastern and southwestern roots). Performers from both styles were featured on radio shows such as Nashville's Grand Ole Opry and Chicago's National Barn Dance. After World War II, the country and western style gradually incorporated electric instruments, a drum set, and in the late '60's--some elements of the rock style. Eventually the term country was used to describe this new style of music.

URL no longer available 

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Interview with Shawn Walsh, Praise and Worship Leader at First Baptist Church, Leonard, Texas

by Chantel Lines

When do you think children should began to be taught to sing?

After teaching children's choir for 15 years, I believe from 2-5 years of age.

Why?
because children's ears and voices have not been trained and you can teach more directly and with a surprising level of difficulty using the Suzuki method.

What do you mean by a surprising level of difficulty?

Children can be taught by use of picture and word coalesce. You may show a picture with a word and that child will remember it. I have also used shaped notes in teaching children their note-staff relationships. I have taught some children over 30 music symbols using this method with great success,(example, Kristie Lynn Patterson). Suzuki uses repetition as one of their key principles. I believe that a child of three can be taught as successfully as a child of nine.

http://home.texoma.net/~alphom1/cyber98/shwn.html

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GREAT INSPIRATIONAL SONGS

325 all-time great inspirational songs and hymns in shaped notes. (Spiral Bound, 5 x 8)  A Beautiful Life, A Rich Man Am I, A Soul Winner For Jesus, A Tramp On The Street, Abide With Me, All Hail The Power, Almost Persuaded, Am I A Soldier Of The Cross, Amazing Grace, America, An Empty Mansion, Are You Almost Decided, Are You Washed in The Blood, Asleep In Jesus, At Calvary, At The Cross, Away In A Manger, Away Over In The Promised Land, Battle Hymn Of The Republic, Beautiful, Beautiful Isle Of Somewhere, Blessed Assurance, Blessed Be The Name, Blest Be The Tie, Break Thou The Bread Of Life, Bring Them In, Bringing In The Sheaves, Broken Pieces, Camping In Canaan’s Land, Christ Arose, Cleanse Me, Close To Thee, Come And Dine, Come To The Feast, Come Unto Me, Coming Back Home, Count Your Blessings, Daniel Prayed, Did You Think To Pray, Do Lord, Doxology, Echoes From The Burning Bush, Enough For Me, Even Me Even Me, Evening Prayer, Everybody Ought To Know, Everybody Will Be Happy Over There, Face To Face, Faith Of Our Fathers, Farther Along, Footsteps Of Jesus, Gathering Buds, Gettin’ Ready To Leave This World, Give Me Oil In My Lamp, Give Them The Roses Now, Glory To His Name, Go Right Out, Go Tell It On The Mountain, God Be With You, God Is Still On The Throne, God Sent An Angel, God’s Gentle People, Grace So Amazing, Hand In Hand With Jesus, Heaven, Heaven Came Down And Glory Filled My Soul, Heaven Will Surely Be Worth It All, Heavenly Sunlight, Heaven’s Jubilee, Heaven’s My Home, Heaven’s Really Gonna Shine, He Is So Precious To Me, He Knows, He Leadeth Me, He Loves Me, He Set Me Free, He Will Remember Me, He’s Got The Whole World In His Hands, He’ll Understand And Say Well Done, Hide Me Rock Of Ages, Higher Ground, His Broken Body, His Eye Is On The Sparrow, Hold To God’s Unchanging Hand, Holy Manna, How Beautiful Heaven Must Be, How Long Has It Been, How Sweet The Name Of Jesus Sounds, I Am Bound For The Promised Land, I Am Coming To The Cross, I Am Resolved, I Am Thine O Lord, I Am Trusting Lord In Thee, I Can Tell You The Time, I Cannot Find The Way Alone, I Feel Like Traveling On, I Have But One Song, I Know He Heard My Prayer, I Know Who Holds Tomorrow, I Looked All Over Heaven, I Need No Mansion Here, I Need The Prayers, I Need Thee Every Hour, I Shall Not Be Moved, I Surrender All, I Trust The Lord, I Walk In The New Jerusalem Way, I Want To Be Ready To Meet Him, I Want To Know More About My Lord, I Want To Stroll Over Heaven With You, I Want To Walk Just As Close As I Can, I Will Not Be A Stranger, I Will Sing The Wondrous Story, I Will Use It All For Thee, I’d Rather Be An Old-Time Christian, I’ll Be A Friend To Jesus, I’ll Be Satisfied, I’ll Fly Away, I’ll Have A New Life, I’ll Live For Him, I’ll Live In Glory, I’ll Live On, I’ll Meet You In The Morning, I’ll Understand It By And By, I’m As Poor As A Beggar, I’m Bound For That City, I’m Building A Bridge, I’m Free Again, I’m Going Home, I’m Going That Way, I’m Redeemed, I’m Thankful, I’m Too Near Home, I’ve Found A Better Way Of Life, If I Can Enter In, If I Could Hear My Mother Pray Again, If We Never Meet Again, In My Father’s House Are Many Mansions, In Times Like These, Is My Name Written There, Is There Anybody Here That Never Knew Him, It’s Different Now, Jesus Calls Us, Jesus Hold My Hand, Jesus Is Calling, Jesus Is Coming Soon, Jesus Is True, Jesus Loves Me, Jesus Paid It All, Jesus Passed By, Jesus Savior Pilot Me, Jesus Whispers Peace, Joy To The World, Just A Closer Walk, Just A Little Talk With Jesus, Just A Little While, Just A Rose Will Do, Just As I Am, Just Over In The Glory Land, Just Over The Stars, Keep On The Firing Line, Keep On Walking, Kneel At The Cross, Lead Kindly Light, Leaning On The Everlasting Arms, Let The Lower Lights Be Burning, Let Me Rest By The Fountain, Life’s Railway To Heaven, Lift Me Up Above The Shadows, Little Is Much When God Is In It, Live Your Song, Looking For A City, Lord I’m Coming Home, Lord Keep Me Close To Thee, Lord Lead Me On, Mansion Over The Hilltop, Must Jesus Bear The Cross Alone, My Faith Looks Up To Thee, My God Is Real, My Heart Is Praying For You, My Lord Keeps A Record, My Soul Be On Thy Guard, Near The Cross, Nearer My God To Thee, Never Alone, Night With Ebon Pinion, No Not One, No Tears In Heaven, Nothing But The Blood, Now The Day Is Over, O Come All Ye Faithful, O Come Angel Band, O Happy Day, O How I Love Jesus, O I Want To See Him, Oh Why Not Tonight, Old Camp-Meeting Days, Old- Time Religion, On The Wings Of A Dove, Only Trust Him, Onward Christian Soldiers, Over The Silent Sea, Palms Of Victory, Parting Hymn, Pass Me Not, Peace Like A River, Precious Memories, Purer In Heart O God, Remind Me Dear Lord, Rescue The Perishing, Revive Us Again, Rock Of Ages, Send The Light, Set My Soul Afire, Shall We Gather At The River, Shall We Meet, Silent Night, Sing On God’s Children Sing On, Softly And Tenderly, Some Day, Some Glad Day After While, Somebody Loves Me, Springtime In Glory, Stand Up Stand Up For Jesus, Standing By The River, Standing On The Promises, Step Out On The Promise, Sun Of My Soul, Suppertime, Surely Goodness and Mercy, Surely I Will Lord, Sweet By-And-By, Sweet Hour Of Prayer, Take Him Down, Take My Life And Let It Be, Take The Name Of Jesus With You, Take Time To Be Holy, Ten Thousand Angels, That Glad Reunion Day, The Blood That Stained The Old Rugged Cross, The Eastern Gate, The First Noel, The Glory Land Way, The Great Physician, The Great Speckled Bird, The Home Over There, The King’s Business, The Lights Of Home, The Lily Of The Valley, The Lord’s Supper, The Love Of God, The Old Gospel Ship, The Old Rugged Cross, The Pearly White City, The Prettiest Flowers Will Be, The Rainbow Of Love, The Royal Telephone, The Son Hath Made Me Free, The Sweetest Name, The Sweetest Song I Know, The Unclouded Day, The Way Of The Cross Leads Home, The Wayfaring Stranger, There Is A Fountain, There Is Power In The Blood, There Is So Little Time, There Will Be Room Enough, There’s A Great Day Coming, There’s A Rainbow Of Love, These Are The Things I Ask, This Little Light Of Mine, This World Is Not My Home, ‘Tis Midnight And On Olive’s Brow, ‘Tis So Sweet To Trust In Jesus, Trust And Obey, Turn Your Radio On, Victory In Jesus, Watching You, Way Down Deep In My Soul, We Believe, We Gather Together, We’ll Never Say Goodby, We’ll Soon Be Done With Troubles, We’ll Work Till Jesus Comes, Were You There, What A Day That Will Be, What A Friend, What A Gathering That Will Be, What A Happy Time, What A Savior, When God Dips His Love In My Heart, When I Looked Up And He Looked Down, When I Reach That City, When I See The Blood, When I Thank Him For What He Has Done, When Our Lord Shall Come Again, When The Roll Is Called Up Yonder, When The Saints Stand In Review, When They Ring The Golden Bells, When We All Get To Heaven, Where Could I Go, Where He Leads Me, Where No One Stands Alone, Where Shall I Be, Where The Fadeless Flowers Grow, Where The Roses Never Fade, Where The Soul Never Dies, Where We’ll Never Grow Old, While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks, While The Years Roll On, Whispering Hope, Who At My Door Is Standing, Who Is That, Whosoever Meaneth Me, Why Do You Wait, Why Not Now, Will Jesus Find Us Watching, Will The Angels Play Their Harps, Will The Circle Be Unbroken, Will There Be Any Stars, Will You Meet Me Over Yonder, Wonderful Words Of Life, Won’t It Be Wonderful There, Work For The Night Is Coming, Yes I Know.

http://www.springside.com/prodinfo.asp?number=GIS-SB

Appalachian Music 2016    FALL 2001   
Appalachian State University

Appalachian Religious Music

Appalachian religious music contains a diverse set of perspectives and musical forms. Some have developed from roots in the old world, while others have developed in America to fit the needs and circumstances peculiar to certain points in time. Some are oral traditions, others involve the use of a system of musical notation called shape notes.

I. Primitive and Old Regular Baptist music
- the oldest and most deeply conservative tradition
- many of their hymns come out of the great English hymn writing tradition. Composers such as Isaac Watts, John Newton ("Amazing Grace"), Charles Wesley, others. - until recently almost exclusively an oral tradition
- there has been influence exerted on this tradition by gospel music, a much more modern           music - the older music is a single melody, sung simultaneously by the congregation, highly ornamented (grace notes, etc.) much like that of the solo ballad singers. Slow music without a rhythmic pulse. Heterophonic. Many of the melodies use gapped scales and the ancient greek modes.  Occasionally there is lining out, although this is falling into disuse. No instrumental accompaniment. There was a split within the Primitives over the use of organs during church services. An elegant, deeply moving sound. The songs maintain a "long meter" tradition with great emphasis on feeling rather than rhythm. To some, the sound is melancholy and mournful; for others, it is a glimpse into the very soul of man. Some people, in their uneasiness, try to deal with it by laughing or total silence, but no one can ignore it.  (From Ron Short's article)
 -They observe the sacrament of footwashing, hold yearly memorial services, believe in baptism by full immersion, usually in a stream or river of "flowing water"
-In class example of lining out:  "Amazing Grace"
- Old Regulars have both black preachers and black members in their churches. They observe the equality of people as a natural part of the Christian ethic.
-Old Regulars (O.R.) believe that the church must exist with total harmony among members.
- (O.R.)There is no national organization for this church and no one designated spokesman. Each church is separate and independent. Churches in several adjacent counties from their own association and annually elect one elder as moderator, the religious and spiritual leader of the entire association.
-(O.R) Each church has an Elder who serves and Moderator and primary preacher, although any preacher in full fellowship may preach also. New elders must be baptized church members and must receive sanciton from other preachers within his church to take on the role.
-(O.R.)Preaching is on specific biblical texts. Sermons are not written and Old Regular ministers must rely heavily on thier knowledge of the Bible and "a double portion of the Sweet Spirit" to get them through. It is not uncommon for a preacher who flounders to be "sung down" by the members. They may also be sung down if they tend toward long-windedness, for Old Regular services are uncommonly long even in normal circumstances.
-Notes: Their ministers are not paid, and unless retired, work at other jobs. The O.R. do not believe in missions, Bible societies, seminaries, or Sunday schools. They do not hold revivals or actively recruit members.
- According to Ron Short, the relative old age of church members has led some to believe the church is dying, but traditionally people have always joined the church in middle age and today membership is increasing.
-Among some of the Old Regulars there is now "soft doctrine" (which places most or all of the responsibility for a man's destiny upon the man himself) as opposed to "hard doctrine" (strict predestination)

II. Campmeeting songs, spirituals  and Choruses from the Great Revival
  (The Second Awakening occurred earlier:  1787- 1805)
- These were simple songs sung without the benefit of hymnals.
- This Great Revival reaching its apex in the 1830's was fueled by the Methodists and Baptists. The Presbyterian ministers also worked with the Methodists and Baptists to set up the camp-meetings.
(Note: The Methodists were called the Singing Church and were "on fire" for God, about like the Pentacostals are now). Converted hundreds of thousands to Christianity. It changed the dominant religion of the mountain region from Presbyterian (reflecting the Scotch-Irish) background to Baptist and Methodists. Believed ministers did not have to be educated clergy and anyone who received the "call" from God could preach. "People questioned their denominations, their ministers, and each other. Seeking the truth, they would travel great distances in discomfort and danger to hear a new preacher, one who was said to hold the secrets of God's will. Thus they came to the camp meetings- for fellowship, yes, and for recreation - but primarily they came in search of a God who, when He did speak, could make them hear."
-These camp meetings opened a new chapter in the story of religious music. They literally took the old songs and sang them "to pieces," is so doing they inadvertently created the gospel chorus. Taking a couple of familiar lines and adding appropriate exclaimers such as "hallelujah,"  the minister could lead his proportioned section in singing. Even with the loose divisions, the crowd would be so large that it was impossible to try to teach them a new song, and with a free pairing of a set of lyrics to any tune desired, there wasn't a majority to agree upon one particular melody.
-Some leaders attempted the old Puritan method of "lining out" a song for their groups, but it was difficult to be heard above the dogs barking and the infants crying, plus you can't sing a new song with the same abandon and enthusiasm that you do if the song is a dear old friend. There were hardly any books on hand so on-the-spot improvisations created new songs.
-Refrains and choruses were often disjointed and seemingly not related, due to the larger masses singing the most familiar shorus and a few joining in on the verses. The choruses were then embellished and lengthened until they were themselves a whole song. The songs rang wild and free in the open air.
- "'Tis the Very Same Jesus" is a good example of a simple chorus which became an entire song:
 Tis the very same Jesus,
 Tis the very same Jesus,
 Tis the very same Jesus, the Jews crucified.
 But He rose, He rose,
 He rose and went to heaven in a cloud.

Repetition is seen in this song. Working with such large numbers, the song leaders had to keep the lyrics simple and often repeat so that all could sing. Repetition songs themselves were very popular such as "Where the Sun Will Never Go Down"
- Simple easy to learn songs (reminds me of the "Praise and Worship" songs of today)
 - In class Example: “Where the Sun Will Never Go Down”
- Music was passed on and learned by oral transmission
-The main emphasis in all camp meeting songs was on personal salvation. Here's an example:

   Shout On or Antioch
 
 I know that my redeemer lives,
  Glory Hallelujah!
 What comfort this sweet sentence gives!
  Glory Hallelujah!

 Shout on, pray on, we're gaining ground,
  Glory Hallelujah!
 The dead's alive and the lost is found,
  Glory Hallelujah!

-This was a time of great passion and jubilation. “As the people accepted the grace and mercy of God, they pledged their loyalty and their lives. The song became joyous; it burst through the night and soared on free wings. The people stood with faces in the wind and sang praises to their God."  "The flames of the torch fires danced, and the people huddled together as the cold winds swept through the forests and out onto the flat. Screech owls and raccoons babbled over the invasion of their domain; the wolves feared the great numbers and their fires, and circled back to the mountains. Woolen shawls and knitted scarves were drawn closer over throats now swollen with song. Children, long asleep on their mothers' shirts, heard the wind and, although afraid, rolled their eyes to see the lcouds sweep across the sky in its wake. Wisps of gray hair blew loose from the grandma's knot and flogged her face as she strained to see through the stars to heaven's portals. They sang of death defied and the morning assured. The wind caught these songs, but found that it had no firm hold, and the songs went back to the people. The fervor and excitement of the camp meetings are visible in those songs which were produced by torch light and contagious zeal."

 There's glory, glory in my soul,
 It came from heav'n above;
 Which makes me praise my God so bold,
 And His dear children love.
 
 O give Him glory, O give Him glory,
 O give Him glory, for glory is His own,
 And I will give Him glory,  and I will give Him glory,
 Arise and give Him glory, for glory is His own.

-The camp meeting was carried by its disciples into the 20th century, and the brush and arbor meetings continued in the rural south until technology and industrialization replaced the live experience with the 21 inch screen and the video tape.
-Question: does anyone know what a mourner's bench is?  (This term comes from the Great Revival campmeetings. Refer them to the book Saint in the Wilderness. The story of an itinerant minister and "exhorter" of "mourners")

III. The tunebooks and singing schools come to the region
-Singing schools began thriving in America (New England) about 1770
-These schools took written music from the possession of the church and rendered it more secular and vernacular (pertaining to the native or common language of a place or group)
-The task of the singing school teachers was to educate a nation "whose minds must have been musically a perfect blank." (George P. Jackson, P. 9 White Spirituals in the Southern Uplands)
-In 1798 Smith & Little published The Easy Instructor which utilized shaped notes. The Easy Instructor took the old fasola system, used as long ago as the days of Shakespeare, and attaching a different shape note head for each sound, printed a song in a technique so simple that it could be quickly learned by any singer. This was a four note system- fa so la fa so la mi fa was used for the entire major scale.
-In 1805 Jeremiah Ingall published The Christian Harmony hymnal using the Smith & Little fasola system
-in 1815 Aninias Davisson publ. Kentucky Harmony (it had four-part harmony) Other song books appeared, all using Smith and Little's fasola shape note system An item of interest
-The Missouri Harmony was used by Abraham Lincoln
-For nearly 200 years people have used The Columbian Harp, The Sacred Harp, and The Southern Harmony.  These are all oblong songbooks.
-In 1846 Jesse B. Aiken pub. The Christian Minstrel in Philadelphia. Aiken gave his version of the seven note plan now universally used (the same idea as the "do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, ti, do" that we have used in class. Aiken's system was a bit different than the one that we have learned in class. But it was groundbreaking in that it did not use the older unwieldly 4-shape fasola system).
-The acceptance of this system made it possible for the singers of the old sacred music to have a common note system - one that gave them the most range and manuverability musically. "The acceptance of this system forever drew the line between the established music of the city denominations and the smaller rural denominations."
-The division between the urban and rural churches' choice of music was described in John Rublowsky's book  Music in America :
"On one side were the traditionalists who looked to the Old World and lamented the changes that occurred in the 'old sacred melodies.' On the other, was the great mass of people who, untutored and unlettered, made music for the sheer joy of the experience. This music reflected and expressed their lives. It developed a distinctive cadence and style that was different from that of the past. The traditionalists sneered at their innovations and dubbed their style with the name 'common.' Although the Baptists and Methodists made up the larger congregations at that time their church members were either rural dwellers, or the urban bottom of the social classes.
- The singing school teachers followed the lines of migration and took their music south and to the mountains where people weren't influenced by "economic prosperity and European musical influences."  So while singing schools were falling into disuse north of Ohio by the 1840's and 50's they were just catching on in the south and in the southern mountains. And when they caught on they stuck! (The northern singing schools were actually stamped out by music educators who desired to replace the native American music with music they considered of a "better quality." These have been nicknamed the "Better Music Boys.")
-These singing schools did achieve their desired goal which was the improving of congregational singing.
-Once the singing schools came south a major center of shape-note music promotion, education, and publishing occured in Northwest Virginia. A key figure was Aldine Kieffer who in 1877 published The Christian Harp. This tunebook specialized in songs for Sunday Schools and revivals. The songs were even different from the older folk tunes. There was more emphasis on the positive side of life rather than on death and the grave. Kieffer also kept busy with “The Musical Million”, started in 1870, a montly periodical devoted to rural music, singing schools and their teachers, and songs and songbooks in shaped notes. In 1874 he opened the Virginia Normal School of Music (in the Shenandoah Valley) to better train and educate singing school teachers. He was incredibly influential in promoting shape-note music. One of the alumni from his normal school was J. D. Vaughan who in 1902 started the Vaughn Music Co. and in 1911 opened the Vaughan School of Music. (Vaughan was a major influence in gospel music).

Characteristics of the Tunebooks of the 1800s:
-Many of the four shape books used tunes in oral circulation
-Melody was given regularly not to the upper voice but the the line above the bass.
Since the background of the tunebook composers was in Anglo-American folksong they tended to think of music simply as linear melody, they worried less about  chordal  progressions than  about making each of the vocal lines in their settings "so good a melody that it will charm even when sung by itself."
-Their most dramatic departure from classical practices, however, was to produce  settings (musical arrangements)  for 3 voices instead of 4. This resulted in "hollow" harmonies emphasizing fourths and fifths rather than the  "happy harmony" based on thirds of the later gospel tradition of the late 1800s and  1900s.
-This music is polyphonic (consisting of two or more distinct melodies combined into a unified musical composition). Polyphonic means "many voices" or more than one melody that occur simultaneously.
-Southern born tunebook compilers were termed "southernizers" of this shape-note tradition because as they began producing their own books they both channeled the living stream of white spiritual songs and choruses into print and preserved this music for the twentieth century as choral song.
 

IV. The City Revival of 1857-59,  which after the Civil War merged with the revival campaign of evangelist Dwight Moody and his songleader Ira Sankey and continued into the 1870's and 1880's. "Gospel Song," as a new style and approach to religious music, originated with these revivals.
-The City Revival of 1857-58, began in Philadelphia and New York and spread throughout the nation. It was termed the business men's revival, the "Stand Up for Jesus" revival which was to produce the Christian Commision (the Civil War U.S.O.) and through its spread of the Y.M.C.A. merged with and influenced the Moody and Sankey revival of the 1870's.
-The revival also produced a hymnodic revolution. It gave birth to the "Gospel Song" and/or "Gospel Hymn." The gospel song is similar to the spiritual in that its ideas are drawn from the imagery and vocabulary of the Bible, or from the vocabulary of the conversion experience, but is Victorian in character. Gospel song is ornate and sentimental, where the spiritual, born on the frontier, is direct, elemental, folk-level song. Like the spiritual, the gospel song sports a chorus, but in singing the gospel song one begins normally with the verse. Furthermore the gospel song chorus is an integral part of the whole, whereas the chorus in the spiritual tradition can "wander" from hymn- text to hymn-text, with typical camp-meeting freedom. The spiritual choruses were circulating choruses, not bound to any one hymn. The gospel songs were also more "literary" than the spirituals. In fact they were "popular" songs with religious topics rather than folksongs.

KEY PEOPLE and PUBLISHERS:
-The gospel hymn phenomenonof the late 1870's resulted from the popularity of two collections, Philip P. Bliss's Gospel Songs (1874) and Bliss and Ira D. Sankey's Gospel Hymns and Sacred Songs (1875).
-A key publisher and promoter of gospel music was J. D. Vaughan who in 1902 started the Vaughn Pub. Co. By 1903 he has settled in Lawrenceburg, Tenn., where he began publishing songbooks using the seven-shape system. By 1909 he was selling 30,000 books a year; by 1912, 85,000 books a year. One or two new books were published each year, often in paperback form and often containing as much as 75 % new material and 25 % old standards or favorites. Some rural churches used Vaughan's books in regular services, but most of the books were used in county or statewide singing conventions and specialty singing.  His company became the South's largest and in 1911 he opened the Vaughan School of Music sponsoring his own singing schools.
-Vaughan also used a number of important innovations to publicize his work. Like Kieffer, he started a magazine, “Vaughan's Family Visitor”, a monthly magazine of gospel news, messages and lessons that circulated for 30 years. This magazine announced singing schools, news, and songbooks. In 1922 he began his own record company, Vaughan Records, to help popularize new songs and saw it become the South's first home-based record company. He bought his own radio station, WOAN, and encouraged his singers to perform on other commercial stations.
-Vaughan's greatest and most far-reaching influence was the organization of quartets that he put on the road to sing his songs and sell his books. This is the beginning of the multi-million dollar industry called gospel music. The Vaughan quartets were a spectacular success wherever they went, and soon the company had 16 different quartets on the payroll; some of these quartets became popular in their own right and soon eclipsed the company they were representing. The classic southern gospel quartet - four men and a piano - comes from Vaughan's innovations.

-Interestingly enough,  Boone, NC is the home of the major national publication on Southern Gospel Music, The Singing News. (This publication promotes the Southern Gospel Quartets that are out "on the road" doing Southern Gospel.)
-Listen to  Boone's WATA radio station, 1450 AM, 9 AM on Sundays for "The Old Gospel Ship" program (contemporary Southern Gospel radio program), hosted by Tim Greene (of  The Singing Greenes - a top group in the US from Boone).

 -Another key name in the field of early gospel music publishing is Virgil Oliver Stamps. In 1907 he attended his first singing school and afterwards started teaching church singing schools. From 1914-24 he worked for the Tennessee Music Company, for Samuel Beazley and for J.D. Vaughan. In 1924 he started the V.O.Stamps Music Co. and that year he published his first songbook, Harbor Bells.  That same year the V.O. Stamps School of Music held its first session. J.R. Baxter joined Stamps two years after and they formed the Stamps-Baxter Music Co. Stamps organized a personal quartet in which he sang bass. A lot of other quartets were formed and trained at his school.
-One of Stamps greatest achievements was the extent to which he used radio. At one time he had 100 quartets or radio stations in various states, some with nationwide broadcasts. In 1936 the original Stamps quartet got a daily show on KRLD in Texas which was estimated to have reached 9 million people /day. The Stamps-Baxter Co. made an important move toward taking gospel music out of the church and into the realm of pure entertainment when they staged an "all-night sing" in the Cotton Bowl in 1940 - creating a format that would characterize southern gospel for years.
-During the 1930s was when the paperback gospel songbook publishers were at their height of popularity.
-Vaughan claimed cumulative sales of over 5 million books, and some 40 to 50 independent publishers issued such books.
-By the end of WWII the balance of power had shifted away from the song-publishing companies to the quartets and gospel groups; major country radio shows like the Grand Ole Opry had gospel groups as regular members, and in 1946 the Homeland Quartet of Arlanta saw its "Gospel Boogie" (Everybody's Gonna Have a Wonderful Time Up There") become a nationwide pop hit.
-A nationwide fad for pop-gospel music in the early 1950s attracted huge audiences for young groups like the Blackwood Brothers, the Statesmen, the Jordanaires (Elvis Presley's favorite backup group), and the Happy Goodman Family. Country artists like the Bailes Brothers, James and Martha Carson, Molly O'Day, and the Louvin Brothers made gospel a major part of their repertoire. The newly emerging bluegrass bands of the 50s often borrowed gospel repertoire and quartet singing styles.

THE MUSIC ITSELF
-According to researcher George Pullen Jackson the major ingredient in gospel songs is simplicity. "The lyrics tell as story, both uncomplicated and relevant, and the combination of music and story produces a song that people 'enjoy singing or hearing performed.'"
-"This is democratic music making. All singers are peers. And the moment selection and exclusion enter, at that moment this singing of, for, and by the people loses its chief characteristic." (G.P. Jackson)
-"Their emotional catharsis was 100%... the blessing of this music-making and the prime reason, perhaps for its longevity; a blessing which obviously cannot descend upon those omminously great masses of mere hearers of music." (G.P.Jackson)
 - Gospel songs were more upbeat, cheery - there was a more positive view of what life could be. The songs still looked forward to heaven but life on earth was not so desolate as in the lyrics of the tunebooks of the 1800s.
-Also these new songs were unique in that they were written, in many instances, by one person and composed especially for a certain book.
-There was a much great use of major keys "totally in major keys" while many of the old folk hymns were in minor keys. Harmonized with "happy" major chords, relied upon harmony of thirds rather than fourths and fifths as in the old 19th century tunebooks.
-This music is often homorhythmic ( composition in which the voice and/ or instrument parts move in one rhythm in a chordal style) except for the “exciting” moments when the vocal parts sing separate and complimentary parts.

URL No longer available

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Ottawa Shape Note Chorus

The Ottawa Shape Note Chorus is an informal choir that has met since 1984 to sing early and contemporary four-part hymns from a book called The Sacred Harp. In The Sacred Harp, the music is printed on the regular musical staff, but the bodies of the notes appear in different shapes--triangle, oval, diamond, square--corresponding to the syllables of the 18th century scale, Fa, Sol, La, and Mi. This system was designed to teach music reading skills to novices, and it works! The music is beautifully arranged, harmonized in the old style with many open fifths and in some songs a kind of fuguing counterpoint. The singing is vigorous and full throated, and the songs are majestic, gloomy, exhuberant, and melancholy by turns.

The Ottawa Shape Note Chorus meets on the second and fourth Tuesday of the month, autumn, winter, and spring, in a member's living room. We sing from about 8 until 10 o'clock, then head for the kitchen for coffee, tea, and goodies. The group is mostly pretty small: our usual complement is about a dozen singers. We have had as many as thirty-- at the heady beginning of a couple of singing years--and sometimes slip to as few as six. We are a secular group: no prayers, no testimonies. We meet to sing Sacred Harp songs and enjoy each other's company. There's a lot of laughing and fooling around, but we sing the music pretty straight. We sit in the traditional hollow square so the sound we produce is enjoyed by all. One person is designated pitch- and tempo-setter, but the songs are chosen by each singer in turn.

Anyone is welcome to join the Ottawa Shape Note Chorus. We don't audition newcomers, though we ask that new members be able to carry a tune. We are a recreational singing group that makes music for its own amusement and seldom perform in public. Having said that, we should mention that the Capital City Barbershop Chorus has been reckless enough to invite us to one or two of their all-city-all-chorus meets; there we provided "tragic relief" to the insufferably optimistic and unremittingly major key repertoire of our amiable striped pole hosts. We have also performed at a local Heritage Day festival on two occasions. That's when we got our name: we had to call ourselves something. The first year, it was the "Ottawa Sacred Harp Chorus", but too many people came expecting to hear Irish music. So we became a "Shape Note" chorus thereafter. We don't mind baffling our audiences, but we don't like to mislead them.

In November and December, the group takes a break from The Sacred Harp and sings English Victorian carols traditionally sung in pubs in Yorkshire and other parts of England. Our music is transcribed--in regular round notes!--from several English collections. In 1995, we actually got to sing the carols in an English pub--the Swan at Carp-- to the delight of singers and patrons alike.

But back to The Sacred Harp: Canada is no newcomer to shape note music. Dorothy H. Farquharson, in her invaluable, self published "O, For a Thousand Tongues to Sing: A History of Singing Schools in Early Canada" (R.R. #2, Waterdown, Ontario, Canada L0R 2H0), 1983, says that rural 18th and 19th century Canadians sang out of oblong books of sacred music notated in Lancashire sol-fa, ziffern (numerical) or round notes, and buckwheat or patent (shaped) notes. In 1838, the Methodist Church in Upper Canada (Ontario) announced that its newly published collection, Sacred Harmony, came in "two impressions ... one in round, and the other in patent notes--so that persons ordering can consult their respective tastes in this particular."

The Sacred Harp was first printed in Philadelphia in 1844 and has been revised regularly since. The Ottawa Shape Note Chorus sings from the latest, 1991 edition. We have extra books for new singers to borrow, or to buy at nominal cost.

For more information about Sacred Harp see the Fasola Home Page.

To find out more about the Ottawa group, call Shelley Posen at
(613) 235-9947 or e-mail This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

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Last Update: 12/Mar/96

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Millard McWhorter:
Portrait of a Sacred Harp Saint

By Sam Jones

A half-used bottle of Watkins vanilla flavoring in our kitchen cupboard triggers a flood of Sacred Harp memories for me. This tall bottle came to our house from a box of Watkins home products that always traveled in the car trunk of one of the most enthusiastic singers I ever knew -- my Uncle Millard McWhorter. Millard, known to family members from his youth as "Buster", devoted most of his life to Sacred Harp music. Nearly every Sunday (and often the Saturday before) found Uncle Millard and Aunt Pearl on the road to some little church in North Alabama -- or almost any place in the country -- to attend a singing. Part of their livelihood was the sale of Watkins products. Also in the trunk of that old Buick rode boxes of Sacred Harp songbooks and records, because Millard was a tireless, unpaid promoter of the old music he loved so much.

I really believe Millard lived to sing. It simply "turned him on" and kept him going. And Pearl was his willing accomplice. She always went along and never failed to take a bounteous box of home-cooked food for the noontime spread that was a part of every all-day singing. My wife and I used to marvel at the regularity and high quality of these food offerings, provided at considerable sacrifice and requiring hours of preparation the night before. Millard and Pearl, having frequently driven long distances from their home in Birmingham, would be among the first to arrive at singings and the last to leave. It was Pearl's custom, many times, to have mailed a card or note ahead of time to remind relatives and friends to be there. Millard would often provide rides to friends who had no transportation, and both Millard and Pearl made a point of keeping up with sick folks and those in need -- always ready to spread the news and start an offering. They seemed to know and love everybody.

Millard greeted all with a big grin, a handshake, and a hug -- a man full of grace and sensitivity, to whom tears came as easily as laughter, and who loved to tell or hear a good story. Actually, he was seriously ill most of his life, but hardly anybody knew it. After losing most of his stomach to a cancer operation in the 1940s, he was forever after troubled with recurring illnesses. But "I'm doing just fine" was always his response when one greeted him, and he certainly acted like it.

In front of a Sacred Harp class, Millard was a sight to behold. His face aglow, he seemed to vibrate when he led a song, and his enthusiastic joy was contagious. He always had some little tale or joke to tell. He also loved to pull pranks, and was seldom without a big smile. Although Pearl attended all the singings with Millard, oddly enough she did not take part in the singing until a few years before Millard's death in 1981. After she started leading and singing, she quickly became just about as eager a singer as he was. Following his death, she continued to attend every singing she could get to, and sang at every one. Pearl Groover McWhorter died in 1990, and was buried beside Millard and their 3-year-old son Tommy at Antioch Methodist Cemetery east of Heflin, Alabama.

Millard and Pearl were born and raised in rural Cleburne County, which has been a hotbed of Sacred Harp music since late in the 19th century. He was the youngest of 11 children of Millard F. McWhorter, Sr., a native of Ireland who came to this country in 1864 at the age of six. Millard Sr. was a student of T.J. and S.M. Denson, giants of Sacred Harp who spent much of their life in Cleburne County. Millard Sr. was a lifelong teacher, composer, and singer of the Sacred Harp in a wide area of East Alabama and West Georgia.

Millard Jr. spent most of his life in Birmingham, where he was employed at a steel mill until ill health in middle age forced him to make a living as an insurance salesman and at various other irregular jobs. Millard's faith and spirit, aided immensely by Sacred Harp music, sustained him until his death at the age of 78. He had attended a singing just a couple of weeks before he died. The last time I visited him, even though he was frail and weak, he greeted me in the same old way he always had: "Sam, I'm doing just fine." Millard and Pearl are survived by a daughter, Dixie Pearl Cavanaugh, who lives in Vero Beach, Florida, and by two granddaughters and two great- grandchildren.

[Ed. Note: Millard McWhorter first introduced me to my now good friend, Sam Jones, of Huntsville at the first National Sacred Harp Convention at Samford University in Birmingham in June 1980 just after I moved to Huntsville. I am able to testify firsthand to Millard's love for Sacred Harp and its people. He never missed a chance to greet and encourage me during my years as a teenager, college student, and young adult.]

The Influence of the Singing School

By David Ivey

[Reprinted from the Winter 1987 Huntsville Sacred Harp Newsletter]

Of all the influences which have shaped the Sacred Harp musical tradition, probably none has been more important than that of the singing school. It is from this humble and practical music education setting that we today have the four shaped notation used in The Sacred Harp.

The early Americans needed a musical revival. Their necessary preoccupation with settling a new land and gaining their independence had resulted in a type of musical drought, at least for the common folk. But by the mid to late 1700s self taught early American composers were developing a new kind of music that was different from that of their English forebears. Further, they ingeniously sought to devise a musical system that would allow everyone to learn and participate in singing. This was influenced, of course, by the overarching paradigm of democracy in the new American society.

The system may have been known to the early teachers from their English background since shaped notes were known to have been used as early as the days of Shakespeare. In any case, William Little and William Smith are generally credited for first using this four note teaching system in this country through their publication of The Easy Instructor in 1798.

Originally, the singing of the notes was most likely intended to be only a device for learning the music. But the habit of "singing the notes" stuck with this acapella music, and today we continue this tradition of first sounding the fa, sol, la, and mi before singing the verses. But there were other influences of the singing schools. The democratic practice of having all singers direct songs, instead of having a single song leader, probably arose from the teaching of people to lead music in the singing school. It should be noted, however, that women did not direct songs until this century. The women did attend the singing schools, though, because these events were popular courting opportunities for the younger set. The phrase "lead a lesson" certainly came from practice during singing school "lessons".

I believe, though, that the singing school had other non-musical influences that were just as important. The singing schools served as a vitally important social function by bringing people together, providing them an opportunity to fellowship, fostering bonds among them, and providing relaxed settings for common folk to blend theirvoices together in order to express praise and adoration unto their God. The bonds were able to grow deeper in regular singings started as a result of the singing schools. It remains so even today.

In this modern day we do not have to schedule our singing school "after the crops are laid by," and we for the most part do not depend on it as a primary opportunity for recreation and socializing. But for many of us, Sacred Harp is an important part of our lives. For some it serves as a link to a simpler time. For some, it is a connection to good friends. For some, it is an opportunity to preserve a folk tradition for their children and their children's children. For some, it is a unique opportunity for worship and religious experssion. For some, it is a chance to participate in a music that is unique, strong, wonderfully harmonious, and fun to sing.

http://www.mcsr.olemiss.edu/~mudws/huntsville/aug94.html

Singing Schools

A singing school is a brief course of musical instruction devoted to the rudiments of note-reading and sight-singing, with a focus on sacred music. Singing schools, established as early as 1700, were the first American musical institution; they fostered musical skills, notational innovations like shape notes, the composition of psalmody, and the publication of tunebooks like The Sacred Harp. Early singing schools often lasted two or three months, usually during a season of slack agricultural work (the winter months, or midsummer "laying-by" of crops). Today's schools may last only a week or two. Other forms of instruction, comprising only a single session, frequently occur in connection with conventions or festivals. Though sometimes advertised as "singing schools," the term "workshop" might be more appropriate. For more information see "Singing-school" by Richard Crawford and Warren Steel in The New Grove Dictionary of American Music (London: Macmillan Press, 1986), vol. 4, pp. 233-4, which includes further references.

http://www.mcsr.olemiss.edu/~mudws/schools.html

A brief explanation of shape-notation:

Many early American tunebooks intended for a cappella singing in harmony contained music written in "shaped notes," which resemble standard round notes in every respect except that the head of each note has one of four shapes to indicate its interval from the key (tonic) pitch. This system, invented in the U.S. around 1800, was based on the Colonial practice originating in Elizabethan England of singing the seven notes of an octave with four-syllable solmization. The major scale is sung as fa, sol, la, fa, sol, la, me, fa, while the minor scale (1 1/2 whole notes down from the major scale) is sung as la, me, fa, sol, la, fa, sol, la. The four-shape system (fa = triangle, sol = oval, la = square, and me = diamond) enabled many untrained singers of the day to sight-read music without having to understand key signatures. Shape-note music immediately became popular, and it strongly stimulated the expansion of the singing-school movement, which had arisen in New England around 1720 and through which many Americans were taught to sing for spiritual enrichment, fellowship, and recreation. Seven-shape systems of musical notation were also utilized in the U.S. after 1846.

http://www.his.com/~sabol/PRC98-singingschool.html

Shape-Note Singing Schools

The singing school was early America's most important musical institution. It offered a brief course in musical sight reading and choral singing, was taught by a singing master according to traditional methods, and used tunebooks that were printed manuals containing instructions, exercises, and sacred choral music. Singing schools arose from British antecedents around 1700 as part of an effort to reform congregational singing in colonial churches. In New England the movement grew quickly and culminated in the first school of American composers and in the publication of hundreds of sacred tunebooks (1770-1810). Singing schools existed in the South as early as 1710, when they are mentioned in the diary of William Byrd II of Virginia. The movement spread during the 18th century as a pious diversion among affluent planters along the Atlantic Seaboard. After the Revolutionary War, itinerant Yankee singing masters established singing schools in the inland and rural South. Both Andrew Law (1749-1821) of Connecticut and Lucius Chain (1760-1842) of Massachusetts were teaching in Virginia by the 1780s; in 1794 Chapin moved to Kentucky where he taught for 40 years. Singing schools offered young southerners a rare chance to socialize. Even today, many older southerners associate singing schools with their courting days.

The spread of singing schools through the South was aided by the invention of shape or patent notes. The system, first published by William Little and William Smith in The Easy Instructor (Philadelphia, 1801), used four distinctive note heads to indicate the four syllables denoting tones of a musical scale (fa, so, la and mi) then employed in vocal instruction, making unnecessary the pupil's need to learn and memorize key signatures. Denounced by critics as uncouth, the simplified notation caught on in the South and West, where it became standard for sacred-music publication. In 1816 Ananias Davisson (1780-1857) and Joseph Funk (1777-1862), both of Rockingham County, Va., became the first southern singing masters to compile and publish their own tunebooks. By 1860 more than 30 sacred tunebooks, all in shape notes, had been compiled by southerners, although many of these were printed outside the South at Cincinnati or Philadelphia. One of the most popular of these was The Southern Harmony, by William Walker of Spartanburg, S.C.: 600,000 copies were sold between 1835 and the beginning of the Civil War. The Sacred Harp (1844), by Georgia singing masters B.F. White and E.J. King is still in print and is the basis of a flourishing musical tradition in six southern states.

Southern singing masters continued to teach the music of their Yankee predecessors but also introduced "folk hymns," melodies from oral tradition which they harmonized in a native idiom and set to sacred words. Many, including tunes for "Amazing Grace" and "How Firm a Foundation," have remained popular and have become symbols of rural southern religion. Camp meeting and revival songs with new refrains also formed part of the southern tunebook repertoire, especially after 1840. Southern singing masters established organizations such as the Southern Musical Association (1845) and the Chattahoochie Musical Association (1852, still active). These and other state and local conventions provided a forum where established teachers met to sing together, to examine and certify new teachers, and to demonstrate the accomplishments of their classes.

After the Civil War, singing schools and shape notes became increasingly identified with the South, while declining in popularity in other regions. Most teachers switched from the four-shape system to a seven-shape system to keep pace with new teaching methods. Leading singing masters established "normal schools" for the training of teachers. Periodicals such as The Musical Million (Dayton, Va., 1870-1915) helped to link teachers in many areas of the South. Small, cheap collections of music published every year began to supplant the large tunebooks with their fixed repertoire. Although folk hymns and revival songs continued to be published, gospel hymns derived from urban models entered the southern tradition.

In the 20th century, singing schools have declined over most of the region but have survived in a few areas. They seldom last more than two weeks of evening classes and may be as brief as one week. Pupils pay at least a token fee, but few teachers, if any, attempt to make a living as singing masters. Contemporary singing schools fall into three categories: 1) "Tunebook" schools are associated with surviving 19th-century books such as The Sacred Harp or Christian Harmony. These schools preserve much of the 18th-century American repertoire and performance practice. 2) Denominational schools are sponsored by churches, especially by those (Primitive Baptist, Church of Christ) that prohibit instrumental music in their worship. These schools use denominational hymnals, and like their 18th century predecessors, attempt to train skilled sight-readers for congregational singing. 3) Shape-note singing schools are associated with the "little-book" seven-shape gospel repertoire. These schools, often sponsored by local singing conventions or by publishing companies, have declined since mid-century as community "sings" have been replaced by quartet performances. All three types of singing schools are regarded by their adherents as important means of transmitting musical knowledge, skills, and traditions to future generations.

David Warren Steel
University of Mississippi

From ENCYCLOPEDIA OF SOUTHERN CULTURE, edited by William Ferris and Charles Reagan Wilson. Copyright 1989 by the University of North Carolina Press. Used by permission of the publisher.

http://www.arts.state.ms.us/crossroads/music/sacred_harp/mu4_text.html

The American Singing School Movement

The American Singing School movement began in New England around 1720. A group of Harvard-trained ministers became alarmed at the poor quality of singing among their congregations and resolved to do something about it. The result was an effort to train people how to sing by reading music. In 1721, one of these ministers (John Tufts) compiled a singing manual consisting of tunes and instructions on the "rudiment" (fundamentals) of music. Entitled, An Introduction to the Singing of Psalm Tunes, this collection became very popular and eventually went through eleven editions by 1744 [SWU, p. 178].

The type and quality of singing common to New England Protestant churches before 1720 was that associated with the singing of Psalms. Such collections as The Bay Psalm Book (musical edition, 1698) and Ravenscroft's Psalter (1621, a musical edition of Sternhold and Hopkins -- The "Old Version") contained metrical versions of the Psalms versified in a few meters, particularly common meter (CM), short meter (SM), and long meter (LM). Consequently, the entire Psalter could be sung with just a handfull of tunes. The technique of singing the Psalms was called lining out. A songleader or the Clerk ("Clark") would read or "intone" a line of the Psalm and the congregation would respond by singing. The Clerk would then intone the next line, and so on until the Psalm was finished. The technique of lining out the Psalm was developed in England in the 1600's for people to sing the Psalm who either could not read or did not have Psalm books. As in the process which happens with folk music, over a period of time the original tunes become altered to the extent that different versions of the same tune were sung in different areas. Also, because of the similarity of the Psalm tunes, it was very easy to become confused. Consequently, one could start singing one tune and by the finish of the Psalm, end up singing a completely different tune.

Harvard-educated New England ministers had studied music and were motivated to improve the singing quality of their congregations. The Singing School movement was extremely successful and by 1820 had spread throughout New England and into the South. Despite the success of Singing Schools and this new technique of singing, the old way of singing ("regular" singing) continued to be used and still survives today in some Primitive Baptist churches (particularly in Eastern Kentucky) and Afro-American Baptist churches [SWU, p. 222].

By the time of the Revolutionary War (1776), many tunebooks (Singing School manuals) had been published. Perhaps the most successful compiler and composer of Singing School manuals was William Billings (1746-1800). Only one of Billings' tunes survive in modern hymnals:

When Jesus Wept, the falling tear
in mercy flowed beyond all bound;
When Jesus groaned a trembling fear
seized all the guilty world around.

[Episcopal Hymnal, 1982, #715
Presbyterian Hymnal, 1990, #312
Chalice Hymnal, #199
New Century Hymnal, #192]

See William Billings.

Another important composer and compiler of tunebooks was Oliver Holden (1765-1844). His tune, CORONATION ("All hail the power of Jesus' Name, MH #154) is the earliest American hymn tune still in use today. A key feature of this tune as it originally appeared is an ending section with rests in the inner parts. This is reminiscent what later became known as a fuging tune [SWU, p. 179], pronounced, "fuge-ing."

By the time Billings was producing his tune collections in the 1780's, fuging tunes had become a key feature in all collections. An example of a fuging tune which appears in a modern hymnal is LENNOX (MH # 379). This modern rendition does not have the actual "fuge." Please see SWU, p. 180 for a facsimile of the original.

Singing schools were usually organized by the ministers who supported them. Consequently, they were usually held in the church. Later, as they became more of a social rather than a religious opportunity, it was not uncommon for them to be held in the local tavern, or indeed anywhere there was room available. One of the reasons for the success of the singing school was because of the social opportunity it afforded, particularly for young people. For example, here's an excerpt from a letter written by a singing school attendant:

... at present I have no inclination for anything, for I am almost sick of the world & were it not for the hopes of going to singing-meeting tonight and indulging myself a little in some of the carnal delights of the flesh, such as kissing, squeezing &c. &c. I should willingly leave it now, before 10 o'clock & exchange it for a better [Irving Lowens, Music and Musicians in Early America, p. 282].

Singing schools and the new technique of singing were not accepted by everyone. The older, "regular" singing proponents were decidedly against it and viewed the singing school as an example of worldliness which had invaded the church. Also, because the singing schools had taken on a more social function, the music associated with them, particularly the fuging tunes, were seen as insidious, rhythmical, sensuous, worldly and consequently had no place in the true worship of God. A pamphlet was circulated in 1722 which summarized the objections:

1. It is a new way, an unknown tongue.
2. It is not so melodious as the usual way.
3. There are so many tunes we shall never have done learning them.
4. The practice creates disturbances and causes people to behave indecently and disorderly.
5. It is Quakerish and Popish and introductive on instrumental music.
6. The names given to the notes are bawdy, yea blasphemous (i.e., fa-sol-la-mi, etc.)
7. It is a needless way, since our fathers got to heaven without it.
8. It is a contrivance to get money.
9. People spend too much time learning it, they tarry out nights disorderly.
10. They are a company of young upstarts that fall in with this way, and some of them are lewd and loose persons.

[Leonard Ellenwood, The History of American Church Music, p. 20]

By 1830, singing schools were well established throughout America and a new type of criticism began to be leveled against them. On a trip to Cincinnati around 1830, Lowell Mason noted that every where he went, people were singing the "fugueing songs" of "Billings and Company" :

The most mortifying feature and grand cause of the low estate of scientific music among us... is the presence of common Yankee singing schools, so called. We of course can have no allusions to the educated professors of vocal music, from New England, but to the genuine Yankee singing masters, who profess to make an accomplished amateur in one month, and a regular professor of music (not in seven years but) in one quarter, and at the expense, to the initiated person, usually one dollar. Hundreds of country idlers, too lazy or too stupid for farmers or mechanics, 'go to singing school for a spell,' get diplomas from scarcely better qualified than themselves, and then with their brethren, the far famed 'Yankee Peddlers,' iterate to all parts of the land, to corrupt the taste and pervert the judgment of the unfortunate people who, for want of better, have to put up with them. We have heard of one of these cute geniuses, who 'set up' in a town way down east as cobbler! On his sign, under the announcement of his profession, as a provider for the wants of the bodily understanding, was the following choice couplet, setting forth, as a musician, he did not neglect to provide also for the wants of the mental.

Delightful task! to mend the tender boot,
And teach the young idea how to flute.

Cobbling and music! We just ask how any musical nerve can stand that?

[George Pullen Jackson, White Spirituals from the Southern Uplands, pp. 19-20]

Lowell Mason, along with Thomas Hastings, went on to establish public school music education in Boston, which became the model for all American school music education. In addition Mason and Hastings established a music publishing company in Boston and started to produce a more "learned" type of hymn tune modeled after the "correct" harmonies of European (particularly German) music theory. The success of Mason and Hastings in New England proved the downfall of the Singing School movement in that part of the country. However, Singing Schools continued to thrive in the South and a new type of tune book was created in 1802 by William Little and William Smith: the Shaped-note tunebook (The Easy Instructor, Albany, New York, 1802). See Shaped-note Hymnody.

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