6/5/2023 0 Comments The Sacred Harp by B.F. WhiteThe itinerant singing-school master was a common phenomenon in colonial New England, and various masters competed in their efforts to devise an instructional system where congregations could be taught to sing "by note." By the mid-eighteenth century, religious songsters were commonly employing shape-notes to indicate the sounds based on the old British solfege system using syllables fa sol la fa sol la mi. The musical style, however, predates the publication of the book. The singing style takes its name from the The Sacred Harp, first published in Philadelphia by B. A song leader stands in the middle of the square leading the singers first through the notes to the songs and then through the lyrics, a practice emanating from the traditional singing school classes, where singers are taught to sing the notes and then the words. While singing, for the most part, the same repertory of Sacred Harp music as their Anglo American counterparts, a vocal stylistic difference is clearly apparent.ĭuring a typical convention singing the participants arrange themselves in a square according to voice part, the basses facing the trebles, and the tenors facing the altos. African American Sacred Harp singing conventions in southeastern Alabama began near the last third of the 19th century.
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