Shape-note Singing

Shape-note singing was an important part of the social and religious life of rural America before the Civil War. Entire communities gathered for all-day singing. Some of these gatherings, called conventions, lasted several days. In some parts of America, these shape-note singing festivals are held yet today, offering a very unique and vibrant style of music that could well be sung in churches of many traditions. Beyond the singing and related activity, a real sense of fellowship is evident at the singings, an emotional bond compounded of mutual affection and appreciation and the knowledge that all are joined in a common cause. (Buell E. Cobb, Jr. , The Sacred Harp: A Tradition and its Music [Macon: University of Georgia Press, 1978, 1989]) If these people were not happy, in the best and fullest meaning of the word, then I have never seen human happiness. (George Pullen Jackson, White Spirituals in the Southern Uplands [Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1933]) These …