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Sacred Harp

Sacred Harp singing is a tradition of sacred choral music that originated in New England and was later perpetuated and carried on in the American South. The name is derived from The Sacred Harp, a ubiquitous and historically important tunebook printed in shape notes. The work was first published in 1844 and has reappeared in multiple editions ever since. Sacred Harp music represents one branch of an older tradition of American music that developed over the period 1770 to 1820 from roots in New England, with a significant, related development under the influence of "revival" services around the 1840s. This music was included in, and became profoundly associated with, books using the shape note style of notation popular in America in the 18th and early 19th centuries.[1]

For the system of notation with which Sacred Harp music is associated, see Shape note.

Sacred Harp music is performed a cappella (voice only, without instruments) and originated as Protestant music.

He retitled many old songs. These songs were formerly named by their tune, using arbitrarily chosen place names ("New Britain", "Northfield", "Charlestown"). The new names were based on the text; thus "New Britain" became "Amazing Grace", "Northfield" became "How Long, Dear Savior", and so on. The old system was intended in colonial times to permit mixing and matching of tunes and texts, but was unnecessary in a system where the pairing of tune and text was fixed.

He transposed some songs into new keys. This is thought to have brought the notation closer to actual performing practice.

He wrote new alto parts for the many songs that originally just had three vocal lines.

Awake, My Soul: The Story of the Sacred Harp

Chattahoochee Musical Convention

East Texas Musical Convention

List of shape-note tunebooks

Sacred Harp hymnwriters and composers

Shape note

Southwest Texas Sacred Harp Singing Convention

Anon. (1940) Georgia: A guide to its towns and countryside. Compiled and written by workers of the Writers' Program of the . University of Georgia Press.

Works Progress Administration

Bealle, John (1997). Public Worship, Private Faith: Sacred Harp and American Folksong. University of Georgia Press.  0-8203-1988-0.

ISBN

Clawson, Laura (15 September 2011). . University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-10959-6.

I Belong to This Band, Hallelujah!: Community, Spirituality, and Tradition Among Sacred Harp Singers

Cobb, Buell E. (2001). The Sacred Harp: A Tradition and Its Music.

Gould, Nathaniel Duren (1853). . Gould and Lincoln. p. 55.

History of Church Music in America

Horn, Dorothy D. (1970). Sing to me of Heaven: A Study of Folk and Early American Materials in Three Old Harp Books. University of Florida Press.

Marini, Stephen A. (2003). Sacred Song in America: Religion, Music, and Public Culture. University of Illinois Press. See chapter 3, "Sacred Harp singing".

McKenzie, Wallace (1989). "The Alto Parts in the 'True Dispersed Harmony' of The Sacred Harp Revisions". . 73 (73): 153–171. doi:10.1093/mq/73.2.153.

The Musical Quarterly

Miller, Kiri (Winter 2004). "'First Sing the Notes': Oral and Written Traditions in Sacred Harp Transmission". . 22 (4): 475–501. doi:10.2307/3592990. JSTOR 3592990.

American Music

(1983). The Music of the English Parish Church. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-27457-9.

Temperley, Nicholas

Boyd, Joe Dan (2002) Judge Jackson and The Colored Sacred Harp. Alabama Folklife Association.  0-9672672-5-0

ISBN

See also the bibliographic entries under Shape note.

a web site dedicated to Sacred Harp music

Fasola Home Page

. Includes all the songs in the Sacred Harp book: lyrics, sheet music and the individual parts sung by a synthesised voice, and a beginners guide. In English and German.

"Sacred Harp Bremen"

by Warren Steel, another web site on the Sacred Harp

Sacred Harp Singing

a large and well-annotated collection of resources on shape-note music

Sacred Harp and Related Shape-Note Music Resources

songbooks and other resources

Sacred Harp Publishing Company

Public-domain editions: , (1911, rev. J. S. James et al.) (for other shape note tunebooks see these links)

The Sacred Harp (1860)

. Musics of Alabama: A Compilation. Alabama Center for Traditional Culture. Archived from the original on 8 January 2013.

"Wiregrass Sacred Harp Singers Era 1980"

. Florida Memory. Retrieved 14 December 2023.

"Shape Note Singing in Florida"

article on Sacred Harp from the Handbook of Texas online

Sacred Harp Music

includes composer sketches, including one of B. F. White

Sacred Harp singing in Texas

Shape Note Historical Background

historical marker

Sacred Harp Singing