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Every so often a video comes along that manages to explain the history and culture of shape-note music in a way that is both accessible and historically grounded. A new video by Levi McClain does exactly that, exploring the long and fascinating struggle between shape-note notation and the now-dominant round-note system. The video tells the…
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Steven Sabol has announces a MAJOR update to his encyclopedic website of Shape-Note resources! What follows is his announcement: I have updated all chapters of my online resource guide to Sacred Harp and related shape-note music. The last update was in December 2024, although I updated the tunebook chapter last August before the Sacred Harp:…
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The Southern Democrat of Oneonta, Alabama, was published from 1894 until 1989, reporting on Sacred Harp singing over the entire run. The Southern Democrat’s oldest reference (that I could find) to “All Day Singing” was in 1897, when it noted “An all day singing at the court house last Sunday was conducted by Dr. Walker…
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In early September 1912, Georgia newspapers closely followed a public split within the Sacred Harp singing community, as rival conventions met simultaneously in Atlanta. At issue was not singing style or theology, but the legitimacy of competing songbooks—both rooted in B. F. White’s 1844 Sacred Harp. The following newspaper accounts, published over three consecutive days,…
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There’s an exciting new radio special that celebrates the rich tradition of American shape-note singing—an hour-long journey into the sounds and stories of Sacred Harp and its related tunebooks. Shapes of America, produced by Louisville Public Media and the Appalachia + Mid-South Newsroom, traces this distinctive style of communal, a cappella singing from its early…
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Will Fitzgerald has updated his list of seasonal shape-note tunes by adding The Sacred Harp: 2025 Edition. Begun in 2005, this is a terrific resource for quickly finding festive tunes to sing in December or July! We have gathered some of the tunes from the VPH for a list as well. The Christmas text “Hail…
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For those of us who are engaged with the Sacred Harp tradition, the hollow square is where the magic happens—voices raised in four-part harmony, loud and unamplified. But the endurance of these 19th-century shape-note tunes often means they travel far beyond the singing school, finding new life in unexpected places. One compelling recent interpretations comes…
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“Y’all sing like somebody gone to eat and not hungry.” That was the advice Hugh McGraw gave a group of music majors in North Fulton over 40 years ago. This transcription from a 1979 edition of The Atlanta Journal reminds us that while pitch is important, the spirit is everything. Read on for a classic…
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I’ve been conducting increasingly deep research into four-shape shape-note tunebooks. As the project has grown, I’ve realized that the sheer volume and granularity of this material requires its own dedicated space. To avoid overwhelming SingLoud.org and to give this research the focus it deserves, I am launching a new, free publication on Substack: sacredharp.substack.com I…
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Step inside the world of The Sacred Harp—a 19th-century tunebook kept alive in communal gatherings of unaccompanied, full-voiced singing. Singing the Shapes invites viewers into this radically participatory tradition, where anyone who shows up can lead, and the boundary between singer and audience disappears. Filmed across the South, Midwest, and beyond, the documentary captures the…