Shape notes are a

musical notation Music notation or musical notation is any system used to visually represent aurally perceived music played with instruments or sung by the human voice through the use of written, printed, or otherwise-produced symbols, including notation fo ...

designed to facilitate congregational and

social singing Social organisms, including human(s), live collectively in interacting populations. This interaction is considered social whether they are aware of it or not, and whether the exchange is voluntary or not. Etymology The word "social" derives from ...

. The notation, introduced in late 18th century England, became a popular teaching device in American singing schools. Shapes were added to the

notehead In music, a notehead is the part of a note, usually elliptical in shape, whose placement on the staff indicates the pitch, to which modifications are made that indicate duration. Noteheads may be the same shape but colored completely bl ...

s in written music to help singers find pitches within major and

minor scale In music theory, the minor scale is three scale patterns – the natural minor scale (or Aeolian mode), the harmonic minor scale, and the melodic minor scale (ascending or descending) – rather than just two as with the major scale, which al ...

s without the use of more complex information found in

key signature In Western musical notation, a key signature is a set of sharp (), flat (), or rarely, natural () symbols placed on the staff at the beginning of a section of music. The initial key signature in a piece is placed immediately after the clef a ...

s on the

staff Staff may refer to: Pole * Staff, a weapon used in stick-fighting ** Quarterstaff, a European pole weapon * Staff of office, a pole that indicates a position * Staff (railway signalling), a token authorizing a locomotive driver to use a particula ...

. Shape notes of various kinds have been used for over two centuries in a variety of music traditions, mostly

sacred music Religious music (also sacred music) is a type of music that is performed or composed for religious use or through religious influence. It may overlap with ritual music, which is music, sacred or not, performed or composed for or as ritual. Relig ...

but also secular, originating in

New England New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian province ...

, practiced primarily in the

Southern United States The Southern United States (sometimes Dixie, also referred to as the Southern States, the American South, the Southland, or simply the South) is a geographic and cultural region of the United States of America. It is between the Atlantic Ocean ...

for many years, and now experiencing a renaissance in other locations as well.

Nomenclature

Shape notes have also been called character notes and patent notes, respectfully, and buckwheat notes and dunce notes, pejoratively.

Overview

The idea behind shape notes is that the parts of a vocal work can be learned more quickly and easily if the music is printed in shapes that match up with the

solfège In music, solfège (, ) or solfeggio (; ), also called sol-fa, solfa, solfeo, among many names, is a music education method used to teach aural skills, pitch and sight-reading of Western music. Solfège is a form of solmization, though the two ...

syllables with which the notes of the musical scale are sung. For instance, in the four-shape tradition used in the

Sacred Harp Sacred Harp singing is a tradition of sacred choral music that originated in New England and was later perpetuated and carried on in the American South. The name is derived from ''The Sacred Harp'', a ubiquitous and historically important tun ...

and elsewhere, the notes of a C major scale are notated and sung as follows: A skilled singer experienced in a shape note tradition has developed a fluent triple mental association, which links a note of the scale, a shape, and a syllable. This association can be used to help in reading the music. When a song is first sung by a shape note group, they normally sing the syllables (reading them from the shapes) to solidify their command over the notes. Next, they sing the same notes to the words of the music. The syllables and notes of a shape note system are relative rather than absolute; they depend on the key of the piece. The first note of a major key always has the triangular Fa note, followed (ascending) by Sol, La, etc. The first note of a minor key is always La, followed by Mi, Fa, etc. The first three notes of any

major scale The major scale (or Ionian mode) is one of the most commonly used musical scales, especially in Western music. It is one of the diatonic scales. Like many musical scales, it is made up of seven notes: the eighth duplicates the first at doub ...

– fa, sol, la – are each a tone apart. The fourth to sixth notes are also a tone apart and are also fa, sol, la. The seventh and eighth notes, being separated by a semitone, are indicated mi-fa. This means that just four shapenotes can adequately reflect the "feeling" of the whole scale.

Four-shape vs. seven-shape systems

The system illustrated above is a ''four-shape'' system; six of the notes of the scale are grouped in pairs assigned to one syllable/shape combination. The ascending scale using the fa, so, la, fa, so, la, mi, fa syllables represent a variation of the hexachord system introduced by the 11th century monk

Guido of Arezzo Guido of Arezzo ( it, Guido d'Arezzo; – after 1033) was an Italian music theorist and pedagogue of High medieval music. A Benedictine monk, he is regarded as the inventor—or by some, developer—of the modern staff notation that had ...

, who originally introduced a six-note scale using the syllables ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la. The four syllable variation of Guido's original system was prominent in 17th century England, and entered the US in the 18th century. Shortly afterward, shapes were invented to represent the syllables. (see below). The other important systems are ''seven-shape'' systems, which give a different shape and syllable to every note of the scale. Such systems use as their syllables the note names "do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti, do" (familiar to most people due to the song "

Do-Re-Mi "Do-Re-Mi" is a show tune from the 1959 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical '' The Sound of Music''. Each syllable of the musical solfège system appears in the song's lyrics, sung on the pitch it names. Rodgers was helped in its creation by long-ti ...

" from ''The Sound of Music''). A few books (e.g. "The Good Old Songs" by C. H. Cayce) present the older seven-note syllabification of "do, re, mi, fa, so, la, si, do". In the seven-shape system invented by Jesse B. Aikin, the notes of a C major scale would be notated and sung as follows: There are other seven-shape systems.

Effectiveness of shape notes

A controlled study on the usefulness of shape notes was carried out in the 1950s by George H. Kyme with an experimental population consisting of fourth- and fifth-graders living in California. Kyme took care to match his

experimental An experiment is a procedure carried out to support or refute a hypothesis, or determine the efficacy or likelihood of something previously untried. Experiments provide insight into cause-and-effect by demonstrating what outcome occurs when ...

and

control group In the design of experiments, hypotheses are applied to experimental units in a treatment group. In comparative experiments, members of a control group receive a standard treatment, a placebo, or no treatment at all. There may be more than one t ...

s as closely as possible for ability, quality of teacher, and various other factors. He found that the students taught with shape notes learned to sight read significantly better than those taught without them. Kyme additionally found that the students taught with shape notes were also far more likely to pursue musical activities later on in their education.

Shape notes and modulation

Many forms of music in the

common practice period In European art music, the common-practice period is the era of the tonal system. Most of its features persisted from the mid-Baroque period through the Classical and Romantic periods, roughly from 1650 to 1900. There was much stylistic evoluti ...

employ

modulation In electronics and telecommunications, modulation is the process of varying one or more properties of a periodic waveform, called the '' carrier signal'', with a separate signal called the ''modulation signal'' that typically contains informat ...

, that is, a change of key in mid-piece. Since the 19th century, most choral music has employed modulation, and since the key change is easy for instruments but difficult for singers, the new tonality is usually established by instrumental accompaniment; accordingly, the choir will also sing in the

temperament In psychology, temperament broadly refers to consistent individual differences in behavior that are biologically based and are relatively independent of learning, system of values and attitudes. Some researchers point to association of temperam ...

of the instrument rather than the

just intonation In music, just intonation or pure intonation is the tuning of musical intervals as whole number ratios (such as 3:2 or 4:3) of frequencies. An interval tuned in this way is said to be pure, and is called a just interval. Just intervals (and ...

of the human voice. Modulation is sometimes said to be problematic for shape-note systems, since the shapes employed for the original key of the piece no longer match the scale degrees of the new key; but the ability to use of sharp and flat symbols along with shape notes is a matter of the range of sorts available to the typographer and musical preferences. The development of musical preferences is partly documented by surviving copies of B.F. White's ''Organ'' from the 1850s.

Justin Morgan Justin Morgan (February 28, 1747 – March 22, 1798) was a U.S. horse breeder and composer. He was born in West Springfield, Massachusetts, and by 1788 had settled in Vermont. In addition to being a horse breeder and farmer, he was a teacher o ...

's "Judgment Anthem," which first appeared in shapes in Little and Smith's ''The Easy Instructor'' (1801), appears to shift keys (and key signatures) from E minor to E♭ major, then back to E minor before concluding in E♭ major. Morgan, however, may be supposed to have intended simply a shift from major to minor while maintaining the same tonic pitch. It was reprinted in many of the early shape note tunebooks, but not in the

(1844), in which

Jeremiah Ingalls Jeremiah Ingalls (March 1, 1764 – April 6, 1838) was an early North- American composer, considered a part of the First New England School. Biography Jeremiah Ingalls was born in Andover, Massachusetts, in 1764. When he was thirteen, his fath ...

's "Christian Song" is the only song that modulates (in this case, from D minor to D major).

Origin and early history

As noted above, the syllables of shape-note systems greatly antedate the shapes. The practice of singing music to syllables designating pitch goes back to about AD 1000 with the work of

. Other early work in this area includes the

cipher notation Music notation or musical notation is any system used to visually represent aurally perceived music played with instruments or sung by the human voice through the use of written, printed, or otherwise-produced symbols, including notation fo ...

Jean-Jacques Rousseau Jean-Jacques Rousseau (, ; 28 June 1712 – 2 July 1778) was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer. His political philosophy influenced the progress of the Age of Enlightenment throughout Europe, as well as aspects of the French Revol ...

(18th century), and the tonic sol-fa of John Curwen (19th century). American forerunners to shape notes include the 9th edition of the

Bay Psalm Book ''The Whole Booke of Psalmes Faithfully Translated into English Metre'', commonly called the Bay Psalm Book, is a metrical psalter first printed in 1640 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was the first book printed in British North America. The psa ...

(Boston), and ''An Introduction to the Singing of Psalm Tunes in a Plaine & Easy Method'' by Reverend John Tufts. The 9th edition of the Bay Psalm Book was printed with the initials of four-note syllables (fa, sol, la, me) underneath the staff. In his book, Tufts substituted the initials of the four-note syllables on the staff in place of note heads, and indicated rhythm by punctuation marks to the right of the letters. Compositions of the "

Yankee tunesmiths Yankee tunesmiths (also called the First New England School) were self-taught composers active in New England from 1770 until about 1810. Their music was largely forgotten when the Better Music Movement turned musical tastes towards Europe, as in ...

" ("First New England School") began to appear in 1770, prior to the advent of shape notes, which first appeared in '' The Easy Instructor'' by William Little and William Smith in 1801 in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

. Little and Smith introduced the four-shape system shown above, intended for use in

singing school A singing school is a school in which students are taught to sightread vocal music. Singing schools are a long-standing cultural institution in the Southern United States. While some singing schools are offered for credit, most are informal progra ...

s. In 1803 Andrew Law published ''The Musical Primer'', which used slightly different shapes: a square indicated ''fa'' and a triangle ''la'', while ''sol'' and ''mi'' were the same as in Little and Smith. Additionally, Law's invention was more radical than Little and Smith's in that he dispensed with the use of the staff altogether, letting the shapes be the sole means of expressing pitch. Little and Smith followed traditional music notation in placing the note heads on the staff, in place of the ordinary oval note heads. In the end, it was the Little/Smith system that won out, and there is no hymnbook used today that employs the Law system. Connelly shapenotes

Some copies of ''The Easy Instructor, Part II'' (1803) included a statement, on the verso of the title page, in which John Connelly (whose name is given in other sources as Conly, Connolly, and Coloney) grants permission to Little and Smith to make use in their publications of the shape notes to which he claimed the rights. Little and Smith did not themselves claim credit for the invention, but said instead that the notes were invented around 1790 by John Connelly of

, Pennsylvania. Andrew Law asserted that he was the inventor of shape notes. Shape notes proved popular in America, and quickly a wide variety of hymnbooks were prepared making use of them. The shapes were eventually extirpated in the northeastern U.S. by a so-called "better music" movement, headed by

Lowell Mason Lowell Mason (January 8, 1792 – August 11, 1872) was an American music director and banker who was a leading figure in 19th-century American church music. Lowell composed over 1600 hymn tunes, many of which are often sung today. His best-known ...

. But in the South, the shapes became well entrenched, and multiplied into a variety of traditions.

Ananias Davisson Ananias Davisson (February 2, 1780 – October 21, 1857) was a singing school teacher, printer and compiler of shape note tunebooks. He is best known for his 1816 compilation ''Kentucky Harmony'', which is the first Southern shape-note tunebook. ...

Kentucky Harmony The ''Kentucky Harmony'' is a shape note tunebook, published in 1816 by Ananias Davisson. It is the first Southern shape-note tunebook. The first edition of the ''Kentucky Harmony'' was 140 pages and contained 143 tunes. Davisson released four ...

(1816) is the first Southern shape-note tunebook, and was soon followed by Alexander Johnson's ''Tennessee Harmony'' (1818), Allen D. Carden's The Missouri Harmony (1820) and many others.

Rise of seven-shape systems

By the middle of the 19th century, the "fa so la" system of four syllables had acquired a major rival, namely the seven-syllable "do re mi" system. Thus, music compilers began to add three more shapes to their books to match the extra syllables. Numerous seven-shape notations were devised. Jesse B. Aikin was the first to produce a book with a seven-shape note system, and he vigorously defended his "invention" and his patent. The system used in Aikin's 1846 ''Christian Minstrel'' eventually became the standard. This owes much to the influential Ruebush & Kieffer Publishing Company adopting Aikin's system around 1876. Two books that have remained in continuous (though limited) use,

William Walker William Walker may refer to: Arts * William Walker (engraver) (1791–1867), mezzotint engraver of portrait of Robert Burns * William Sidney Walker (1795–1846), English Shakespearean critic * William Walker (composer) (1809–1875), American Ba ...

's ''Christian Harmony'' and M. L. Swan's ''New Harp of Columbia'', are still available. These books use seven-shape systems devised by Walker and Swan, respectively.

Currently active shape note traditions

Although seven-shape books may not be as popular as in the past, there are still a great number of churches in the American South, in particular

Southern Baptist The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) is a Christian denomination based in the United States. It is the world's largest Baptist denomination, and the largest Protestant and second-largest Christian denomination in the United States. The wo ...

Primitive Baptists Primitive Baptists – also known as Hard Shell Baptists, Foot Washing Baptists or Old School Baptists – are conservative Baptists adhering to a degree of Calvinist beliefs who coalesced out of the controversy among Baptists in the early 19th ...

, almost all of the non-instrumental Churches of Christ, some Free Methodists,

Mennonite Mennonites are groups of Anabaptist Christian church communities of denominations. The name is derived from the founder of the movement, Menno Simons (1496–1561) of Friesland. Through his writings about Reformed Christianity during the Ra ...

, some

Amish The Amish (; pdc, Amisch; german: link=no, Amische), formally the Old Order Amish, are a group of traditionalist Anabaptist Christian church fellowships with Swiss German and Alsatian origins. They are closely related to Mennonite churches ...

, United Pentecostals, and

United Baptist United Baptist is name of several diverse Baptist groups of Christianity in the United States and Canada. History The name "United Baptist" appears to have arisen from two separate unions of Baptist groups: (1) the union of Regular Baptists and S ...

s in the Appalachian regions of West Virginia, Ohio and Kentucky, that regularly use seven-shape songbooks in Sunday worship. These songbooks may contain a variety of songs from 18th-century classics to 20th-century gospel music. Thus today denominational songbooks printed in seven shapes probably constitute the largest branch of the shape-note tradition. In addition, nondenominational community singings are also intermittently held which feature early- to mid-20th century seven-shape gospel music such as

Stamps-Baxter The Stamps-Baxter Music Company was an influential publishing company in the shape note Southern gospel music field. The company issued several paperback publications each year with cheap binding and printed on cheap paper. Thus, the older books ...

hymnals or ''Heavenly Highway''. In these traditions, the custom of "singing the notes" (syllables) is generally preserved only during the learning process at

s and singing may be to an instrumental accompaniment, typically a piano. The seven-shape system is also still used at regular public singings of 19th-century songbooks of a similar type to the ''

'', such as '' The Christian Harmony'' and the '' New Harp of Columbia''. Such singings are common in Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Alabama, and generally preserve the singing school custom of "singing the notes". The seven-shape (Aikin) system is commonly used by the

s and Brethren. Numerous songbooks are printed in shaped notes for this market. They include ''Christian Hymnal'', the ''

Christian Hymnary The ''Christian Hymnary'' is a hymnbook used by Mennonites and other Anabaptist groups. It was compiled by John J. Overholt, and published in 1972.Hymnary.or/ref> Featured in this hymnbook is a compilation of over 1000 hymns, including classic h ...

'', ''Hyms of the Church'', ''Zion's Praises'', ''Pilgrim's Praises'', the ''Church Hymnal'', ''Silver Gems in Song'', ''the Mennonite Hymnal'', and '' Harmonia Sacra''. Some African-American churches use the seven-shape note system. The four-shape tradition that currently has the greatest number of participants is Sacred Harp singing. But there are many other traditions that are still active or even enjoying a resurgence of interest. Among the four-shape systems, the ''

Southern Harmony The ''Southern Harmony, and Musical Companion'' is a shape note hymn and tune book compiled by William Walker, first published in 1835. The book is notable for having originated or popularized several hymn tunes found in modern hymnals and shap ...

'' has remained in continuous use at one singing in

Benton, Kentucky Benton is a home rule-class city in Marshall County, Kentucky, United States. The current mayor of this city is Rita Dotson. The population was 4,756 at the 2020 census. It is the county seat of Marshall County. History Benton was founded in 1 ...

, and is now experiencing a small amount of regrowth. The current reawakening of interest in shape note singing has also created new singings using other recently moribund 19th-century four-shape songbooks, such as ''The Missouri Harmony'', as well as new books by modern composers, such as the ''Northern Harmony''. Of a hybrid nature, in terms of reviving

but taking the further step of incorporating songs from 70 other early tunebooks, along with new compositions, is the Shenandoah Harmony (2013). Thomas B. Malone has specialized in the revival of works by Jeremiah Ingalls, and has published a four-shape edition of Ingalls' 1805 ''The Christian Harmony''. Malone organizes an annual mid-July singing in Newbury, Vermont, where Ingalls was a tavern-keeper and musician between 1789 and 1810.

Notes

References

Bibliography

Books

* . * . *Drummond, R. Paul (n.d.) ''A Portion for the Singers: A History of Music Among Primitive Baptists Since 1800''. *Eastburn, Kathryn (n.d.) ''A Sacred Feast: Reflections on Sacred Harp Singing and Dinner on the Ground''. * * * . * . * . * . * , xxxvii, 346 pp.

Journal articles

* investigates the internal debate among shape note singers at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the twentieth. * *

External links

*Archived a
Ghostarchive
and th
Wayback Machine

Fasola Home Page
– web site of the Sacred Harp Musical Heritage Association, dedicated to Sacred Harp and Shapenote singing
Awake, My Soul
– about a documentary movie The Story of Sacred Harp and Shaped Note singing

– article on the evolution of shaped notes

– article promoting the seven shape method
Shape-note Connexion & music of Jeremiah Ingalls
where you can hear a fine example of shapenote singing, including the first run-through with the shapenote syllables being sung * With lesson plans for teachers.
Sacred Harp Music
– article on Sacred Harp from the Handbook of Texas online

article by Chiquita Walls
Stamps-Baxter School of Gospel Music
– school furthering the Stamps and Baxter tradition
UK Sacred Harp and Shapenote Singing
– official UK site with events calendar, resources and contacts for all UK shapenote groups
Sacred Harp and Related Shape-Note Music Resources
– an extensive site of resources concerning Sacred Harp, other Shape-Note music, Gallery music, etc.

– article about singing schools and shape notes
The Shape of Music
– book on teaching small children shapenote singing.
Where Could I Go But To The Lord
field recording from the Florida Folklife Collection
Art of the States: shape-note
recordings
Sacred Harp.mus
Electronic sound files of songs from several 19th century shapenote songbooks using Melody Assistant software.
Seven-Shape Note Sheet Music
Open Hymnal Round Notes converted to Seven-Shape Notes.
Seven-Shape Note Book
Cyber Hymnal Selection converted to Seven-Shape Notes Book.
Singings from the ''Shenandoah Harmony''
List of all-day and regular local singings from the ''Shenandoah Harmony''.

Public-domain shape-note tunebooks

4-shape notation tunebooks on IMSLP7-shape notation tunebooks on IMSLP

''The Methodist Harmonist'' (1833)
* . *
at IMSLP
. * . * Allen D. Carden
''The Missouri Harmony'' (1834)
* W. L. Chappell,
The Western Lyre
', new edition (1835) * David Clayton and James Carrell

'' (1831)] * Ananias Davisson
''A Supplement to the Kentucky Harmony'' (1825, reset 2011)
* Joseph Funk and sons
''The New Harmonia Sacra: A Compilation of Genuine Church Music'' (1915, 18th edition, 7-shape)(2008, 26th edition, 7-shape and 4-shape)
* William Hauser

''The Christian Harp and Sabbath School Songster'' (1870)
(7-shape) * J. S. James
''Union Harp and History of Songs''
(1909) *William Little and William Smith
''The Easy Instructor''
(1801)
Part 2
(1803) * Lowell Mason
''Mason's Sacred Harp'' (1835 and 1844 editions)
* John G. McCurry
''The Social Harp''
(1855) * William Walker

ttp://imslp.org/wiki/The_Southern_Harmony,_and_Musical_Companion_%28Walker,_William%29 (1854)br>''The Southern and Western Pocket Harmony, intended as an Appendix to the Southern Harmony''
(1860) * B. F. White
''The Sacred Harp'' (1860)c. 2

(1911, rev. J. S. James et al.)

''Wyeth's Repository of Sacred Music''
(1826) {{DEFAULTSORT:Shape Note American styles of music Christian music Christian music genres Musical notation Sacred Harp