#shape note singing

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:

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.

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.

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.

“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.