The Shape of Music

By Lori Lockhart

Music has long been a part of Tennessee’s cultural heritage. Whether your tastes favor blues, gospel, country, folk, rock ‘n roll or some other genre, Tennesseans have long embodied musicologist George Pullen Jackson’s advice to “live your own song life and be proud of it.” But long before Nashville became known as “Music City” and Bristol gave birth to country music, shape note singing was the way of the future.

“Old Harp” singing convention, Mount Pleasant, Jefferson County, circa 1905.
Looking Back at Tennessee Photograph Collection, Tennessee State Library & Archives

The shape note musical system was introduced in 1798 by William Little and William Smith of the New York-New Jersey area. Little and Smith’s music book, The Easy Instructor; or A New Method of Teaching Sacred Harmony, initiated the idea of using a shape to represent each of four notes on a scale. At this time, most musicians used the solmization system common in the British Isles. Therefore, the major scale was sung as fa, sol, la, fa, sol, la, mi, fa. A triangular note-head was assigned to fa; sol was given a round shape; la was square; and mi was diamond shaped. The shapes made it easier for musicians to “sight sing” songs that were unfamiliar to them.

Musical scales from a handwritten book by a Mr. Little for Robert Wilson of the Williamsburg District, South Carolina, dated 1775.
Manuscripts Collection, Tennessee State Library & Archives

In the wake of Little and Smith’s work, shape note tunebooks began to be published in mass. What started in the northern states quickly began to move south. In 1815, Ananias Davisson compiled Kentucky Harmony (which is considered to be the first shape note songbook printed in the South) and others quickly followed suit, with several books being produced in Tennessee.

Title page of Johnson’s Tennessee Harmony by Alexander Johnson, published in Nashville, 1824.
Library Collection, Tennessee State Library & Archives

Title page of United States Harmony by Allen D. Carden, published in Nashville, 1829.
Library Collection, Tennessee State Library & Archives

Title page of The Harp of Columbia by W. H. & M. L. Swan, published in Knoxville, 1848.
Library Collection, Tennessee State Library & Archives

This new method of sight singing music knew no geographical or religious bounds as men from various denominations quickly began to assemble their own works. The preface to the 1968 reprint of The Sacred Harp details the diverse affiliations represented:

“Ananias Davisson of Virginia, compiler of The Kentucky Harmony, 1815, was a Presbyterian elder. Joseph Funk of Virginia, compiler of Choral-Music 1816, and Genuine Church Music, 1832, was a Mennonite. James P. Carrell of Virginia, compiler of Songs of Zion, 1820, and Virginia Harmony, 1831, was a Methodist preacher. William Hauser of Georgia, compiler of Hesperian Harp, 1848, was a Methodist preacher.”

Arguably, the most famous authors of shape note songbooks were William Walker and his brother-in-law, Benjamin Franklin White, who were Baptists.

Title page of The Southern Harmony, and Musical Companion by William Walker, 1847.
Library Collection, Tennessee State Library & Archives

The first edition of William Walker’s Southern Harmony was published in 1835. Walker was a music teacher and, according to the 1939 reprint of Southern Harmony, he primarily wrote the manuscript to “provide his singing schools with a book of his own composition.” As with most songbooks of the time, Walker began his tome with “The Gamut, or Rudiments of Music.” In the preface to the first edition, Walker states: “In treating upon the rudiments of Music, I have endeavored to lead the pupil on step by step, from A, B, C, in the gamut, to the more abstruse parts of this delightful science, having inserted the gamut as it should be learned, in a pleasing conversation between the pupil and his teacher.” The introductory remarks in Southern Harmony were borrowed from the Columbian Harmony, published in 1825 by William Moore of Wilson County. Southern Harmony was a huge success with 600,000 copies sold over a period of 25 years. The last Walker edition of Southern Harmony was produced in 1854.

Page of the gamut from a handwritten book by a Mr. Little for Robert Wilson of the Williamsburg District, South Carolina, dated 1775.
Manuscripts Collection, Tennessee State Library & Archives

Walker didn’t stop after his last publication of Southern Harmony though. In 1867, he released the first edition of Christian Harmony. Where Southern Harmony was based on the four shape note system described above, Christian Harmony went over to the seven shape note system that is more familiar to us today.

Page from The Sacred Harp or Beauties of Church Music by Lowell Mason, 1850.
Library Collection, Tennessee State Library & Archives

In 1844, Benjamin Franklin White (Walker’s brother-in-law), along with E. J. King, compiled a book called The Sacred Harp. According to the 1968 reprint of The Sacred Harp, next to “the Holy Bible, the book found oftenest in the homes of rural southern people is without doubt the big oblong volume of song called The Sacred Harp.” From the very beginning, The Sacred Harp had a large following with many southern musical and singing conventions adopting it as their official songbook. And over the years, the term “Sacred Harp” has come to represent shape note singing as a whole.

“Tennessee” from The Southern Harmony, and Musical Companion by William Walker, 1847.
Library Collection, Tennessee State Library & Archives

To explore books in the Library & Archives holdings related to shape note music, browse through titles HERE.

The Tennessee State Library and Archives is a division of the Tennessee Department of State and Tre Hargett, Secretary of State