#shape note singing

[makeitagoodoneeh]

this one's for the real valley pocket harmonist heads

[exactly-one-gremlin]

So I'm going to take a stab at explaining how to read shape notes/how they work as a notation system, partly in response to this post, and partly because I'd like to be able to explain it better to IRL friends. I've only been singing for a couple years and my knowledge of classical music theory is patchy, so hopefully someone more knowledgeable will jump in and correct me if there are major errors.

While I'm guilty of doing this myself sometimes when fumbling for an explanation in conversation, I don't love our collective habit of describing shape notes as "simplified notation for people who couldn't read music" (let alone "for people who couldn't read," a la NPR this summer). For one, it plays into the stereotype of rural -- especially US Southern rural -- people as generally uneducated or stupid, which both is untrue and does real harm. It's also not really accurate: shape notes are not a simplified tool to prepare you to read conventional Western classical notation. They were intended as a tool for teaching singing. As a notation system, they try to make it a little easier to sing three- and four-part harmony accurately in relative pitch, just as you could say classical "round notes" with key signatures are aimed at enabling musicians to sing or play accurately at an absolute pitch.

Here's how it works:

Shape note music uses the same 7-note scale as most European classical music, the diatonic scale (you do not need to know this term), in a major and minor version. The scale is defined by the pattern of intervals -- how far apart each note is from the next -- which we describe as being either whole or half steps. This is the interval pattern, where a - is a note:

[major tonic/key note -] W - W - h - W - W - W - h [- major octave]

[minor tonic/key note -] W - h - W - W - h - W - W [- minor octave]

Both the major and minor versions of the scale repeat infinitely, higher and lower. Eagle eyes will notice that these are the same pattern, just starting from a different point in the sequence; that's the concept of relative keys in classical music theory, and it's also why the intervals between the shapes are always consistent whether we're in major or minor.

We use four shapes to indicate the notes in these scales -- also called the scale degree -- and to help remember the intervals between them. Here they are on page 11 of the Rudiments in the 2025 Sacred Harp (my phone camera is so messed up sorry):

The major scale (including the octave) goes

fa sol la fa sol la mi fa

And the minor scale goes

la mi fa sol la fa sol la.

Here they are fitted together at the bottom of page 12 of the Rudiments:

(Why only four shapes for seven notes? Early music history. The system was derived from English solfege and the idea of hexachord mutations; I only sort of understand this and will mess it up if I try to explain it. Fortunately, you don't need to understand it in order to read shape notes, and there's a beautiful world of academic music history papers out there that you can dig into if you'd like to learn about it.)

This repeating pattern of intervals is the same for the major and minor scales no matter what the scale's absolute starting pitch is. A major scale will always go from its tonic (fa) up a whole step (to sol) then another (to la) and so on; a minor scale will always go from its tonic (la) up a whole step (to mi) then a half step (to fa) and so on. Fa-sol-la is always two whole steps. There's always a half step from fa to the note below it (either la or mi). While you don't necessarily have to memorize all those rules as rules, they eventually get internalized by singing the shapes and hearing those repeated intervals.

Even though a Western classical key signature is usually printed in our books, in shape note music we do not care what that absolute pitch key is, and we're rarely actually singing in it. (Sometimes the written key was chosen by the composer, but more often the tunebook compiler gave it whatever key allowed the notes to fit on the staff without ledger lines. Keyers do use it as a way of organizing their memory of good starting pitches for songs, but more in that they might key most F Major songs similarly than that they're aiming to start us with a true F tonic.) We do care whether the music is major or minor -- some early tunebooks in this tradition describe all music as having only two keys, major or minor -- and we care what pitch the keyer for our singing has given as the tonic (1-fa in major or 1-la in minor). Technically you don't even need major/minor, since the intervals are always the same, but for most people (myself very much included) it's easier to get them right if you have either one or the other scale in your head.

Let's look at a song together! 45b Imandra New in The Sacred Harp ('91 or '25 edition) looks like a very straightforward major-key tune, and I don't think I've ever sung it. (I guess it's possible I just don't remember singing it, because on first glance that's one of the most boring alto parts in the entire book.) Here's the music as printed in the '91 book:

Ignore the key signature. We know it's a major-key tune because the bass part ends on fa: it's an absolute rule in The Sacred Harp and usually true in shape note music more broadly that the bass part must end on the tonic, so fa for major, la for minor. At a singing, the keyer will usually sound all of the parts' starting notes, but if you're just practicing by yourself you can pick a tonic pitch at random and step up or down to your note: in this case it's easy, because the tenor has tonic fa, alto 3-la, and treble 5-sol.

Here's me sight-reading the treble part. You'll hear me step up from a pretty low tonic fa (because I am not a treble singer!!), and the very straightforward rhythm is instead an embarrassing mess because I wasn't thinking about it at all until I started tapping my finger on the book partway through, whoops. I make some mistakes, like jumping from fa to sol in the second-to-last measure initially, but because I know what a major scale sounds like I was able to correct myself to la. It's not perfect at all, but this is literally the first time I've looked at this piece of music.

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I have no idea what absolute notes these are, or what absolute key I'm singing in. I do not need to know that 4-fa is a B flat in the key of F Major, because I might not be singing in F Major. I'm singing in relative major, and I know that in relative major 4-fa is one whole step below the 5-sol I started on, regardless of what absolute note that 5-sol is pitched or written at. The shapes give you all the information you need to know for relative pitching: the intervals between them are always the same.

That's it! That's the whole system! It's just a little key (no pun intended) to relative pitch. Ideally it's eventually not necessary to think about these intervals in terms of "steps", because we internalize what they sound like, just as a competent reader of words understands them without laboriously sounding out every phoneme. Practicing scales and intervals will help train your ear and voice for sight-reading -- there are some good exercises at the end of the 2025 Rudiments -- and sight-reading (followed by checking your accuracy against the Bremen robots or a recording) is itself good practice. But the shapes do convey all the information necessary to sing in relative major or minor, and that's all they're meant to do. I think that's neat!

[hopemushrooms]

Wearing an N95 respirator through 2 days and an evening of singing shape note in 34°C/93°F weather was gross, but doable! Going out for water breaks between each session was key.

I wore this one: L-188 NIOSH N95 particulate respirator from Harley Commodities.

I have a large face and it fit as comfortably as possible, in my experience. It didn't move as I sung, which was a problem with my usual KN94 "boat" shaped masks, and has a much better seal, too.

I changed it at lunch after the morning session because it was doing some heavy lifting, but also the elastics get looser after 2-3 times of putting it on and off.

[pargolettasworld]

Last night, I got to sing from the 2025 Sacred Harp revision for the first time. (It was also Rosh Hashana -- I wonder if this counts as part of the tradition of doing or eating something new to start the New Year . . .) Anyway, I'd been waiting for this! There was one tune in particular that I wanted to see what had been done with it, and I called it as soon as my turn came up. I wanted to see how they'd fixed the STAFFORD problem.

The problem with STAFFORD is this: The tune is an absolute banger. It's by (local boy) Daniel Read, 1782. A major, fuging tune, one of those glorious New England-style fugues that clears out your sinuses like horseradish. STAFFORD is exactly the kind of tune that a class loves singing at most moments in the day.

But the text. In the 1991 Sacred Harp (I don't know about earlier editions, but I would not be surprised), STAFFORD uses a 1719 Isaac Watts text that has aged like milk:

See what a living stone The builders did refuse, Yet God hath built His Church thereon, In spite of env'ous Jews.

You see the problem here, right? Especially since there are a lot of Jewish shape-note singers, and most shape-note singers do at least have Jewish friends or acquaintances.

There have been Efforts. Some Jews just . . . won't sing when STAFFORD is called. Sometimes, a class will make a Silly Substitution™ -- "With help from kangaroos" is popular in these parts, for instance. Occasionally, I've called STAFFORD with just the notes, not the words.

But the cool thing about shape-note tunes is that, because most of them use a relatively limited selection of meters, you can swap out texts, just by matching the meters. STAFFORD is in Short Meter, which means that most (not all, but most) Short Meter texts will fit that tune. So, some classes started swapping out That Text for other Short Meter tunes.

In 2013, the Shenandoah Harmony made it official, printing STAFFORD with a different text, Joseph Hart, 1759 -- a reasonable substitution that Read himself could have used:

Come, Holy Spirit, come! Let thy bright beams arise; Dispel the sorrow from our minds, The darkness from our eyes.

Revive our drooping faith, Our doubts and fears remove, And kindle in our breasts the flame Of never dying love.

I really like this choice. It's hopeful, dynamic, action-oriented, and fits very well both with the motion of the tune and its New England breeziness.

Now it's 2025. The Sacred Harp is revised, and one of the things on the Revision Committee's to-do list was to Do Something about STAFFORD. They decided to keep the tune, which was the correct choice, and to follow the lead of the Shenandoah Harmony and swap out another text. We knew this was coming, and some of us were very excited to see what they'd choose for this glorious, under-used tune. Last night, I learned that their choice was (drumroll please) a different 1719 Isaac Watts text:

Hosanna to the King Of David's royal blood! Bless Him, ye saints, he comes to bring Salvation from your God.

Eh.

It's . . . fine. It fits the tune, and it sits well in the mouth. It's a bit static, a bit removed from the fire and enthusiasm of the Joseph Hart text. It's bland, is what it is. But you know what? I'll take bland. The Shenandoah Harmony is still there to be sung out of. And the Revision Committee did indeed achieve its goal of making STAFFORD actually singable again.

Sure. I'll take it. And I'll add STAFFORD to the list, not just of my favorite tunes, but of my favorite tunes that I actually call on a regular basis.

[raindoor]

As I found out today, a "singing school" - at least the one at the Germany Sacred Harp convention - is not what I think it was. I was hoping that the instructor will explain the basics of shape note singing, which I could definitely use, being as I am entirely taught by the School of Google. My hopes were dashed as soon as I saw that all of the experienced singers where there.

Instead, the instructor went into an arcane nuances of shape note singing and leading. Which generated some interesting discussion in the room. Some of his advice was common sense, like "don't pick a fuguing tune at the beginning of the morning period, when most singers are not awake yet". But then he got really specific, like "what would be an example of a good FOURTH song to lead in the second period?" He did not explain his answer (and I forgot it). But the specificity of it made me think, duuuude, you're just trolling us now. Just admit it.

Then there was a rousing debate of "should it be only experienced singers, or a mix of experienced ones and newbies that should sit in the first row?" And I was thinking, is this guy from a different planet, or am I? Because in Texas Sacred Harp conventions, everyone sits wherever the heck they want - experienced or not, first row, last row, whatever - and switch sections on a whim.

He also made an interesting observation: European Sacred Harp singers care more about being in tune (which may explain why Cork convention recordings sound so good!), whereas Southern US singers care more about "accents" - maintaining a syncopated rhythm (even when it's not indicated by the score) instead of a smooth one.

[girl-of-ink]

nothing in the whole world hits like a shape note/sacred harp choir singing idumea. look this up and be overwhelmed with the beauty of human existence

[the-ablest-navigators]

“Now the day is over, night is drawing nigh. Shadows of the evening steal across the sky.”

Shape note lesson on the chalkboard inside Turkey Creek one-room School House. Built in 1925, Turkey Creek School closed in 1949.

(iPhone 8)

[pancakekazoo]

I recorded our Christian Harmony singing at Little Hope Primitive Baptist Church this past Sunday, but I haven’t listened to it yet. (Kind of afraid you can hear me screwing it up, honestly.) I led one of my favorites, Fish Pond (432b). I couldn’t find a recording of all four verses online, so I’ll have to listen to my recording and hope it’s good enough to share. In the meantime, here are the words: Not from the dust affliction grows, Nor troubles rise by chance; Yet we are born to care and woes A sad inheritance! As sparks break out from burning coals, And still are upward borne; So grief is rooted in our souls, And man grows up to mourn. Yet with my God I leave my cause, And trust His promised grace; He rules me by His well known laws Of love and righteousness. Not all the pains that e'er I bore, Shall spoil my future peace; For death and hell can do no more Than what the Father please.