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IMO, this article needs to be expanded to recognize that Shape Note Music is much broader than Sacred Harp. For more detailed comments see Talk:Sacred Harp. Rlvaughn 22:12, 23 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I concur with Rlvaughn. This article could describe the origins of seven-note music in more detail, rather than merely contrast the system with the four-note system. The article could also expand on the sentence: "There are other seven-shape systems" at the conclusion of "Four-shape vs. seven-shape systems" section. Finally the article could acknowledge the southern gospel tradition, a major contemporary context in which seven-shape music is sung. Silversand ( talk) 22:19, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
The following was added to musical notation - I ( Camembert) don't think it's useful duplication, so I've removed it from there. I think everything is covered in the article, but I thought I'd put it here just in case:
I believe that Lilypond can be persuaded to produce Shaped Notes: is there anyone who can produce some samples so the rest of us can see what we're discussing? Phil 18:07, Dec 16, 2003 (UTC)
Ok, gang, sorry for the dup. However, there is still work to do.
First of all, it is called both "shaped note" and "shape note," and anyone who has spent any amount of time in the rural south can tell you that the word "shaped" and the word "shape" though appearing to be different in written English, are pronounced exactly the same. This complicates word choice in writing an article about what is fundamentally an oral tradition.
Second, the article must make clear that the notation system is an adjunct to the standard five line staff. At least, I've never seen any shaped notes written without a staff. Therefore, people who read music in the usual way can just ignore the shapes and still get the equivalent information content from the position of the note on the staff, and the key signature.
Third, although the method of teaching and the notational convention are almost inseperable, shaped notes are really a system of notation rather than a method or style of singing.
I have also made comments at musical notation regarding linking.
If someone wants to make these updates, great, I will do so boldly in a while if no one else does. UninvitedCompany 22:04, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Is this the wikipedia equivalent to the Britannica entry? If so please create a redirect from shape-note hymnal
Thanks, lots of issues | leave me a message 00:57, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC), the EB 2004 project
I am creating a list of four-shape shape-note tunebooks as an organizational tool for finding and linking to articles about such books. I would appreciate any thoughts or comments. A list for seven-shape books might be good as well. - Rlvaughn 19:32, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Hello! I am a writer for the Smithsonian Institution's Center for Education and Museum Studies, which publishes Smithsonian in Your Classroom, a magazine for teachers. An online version of an issue titled "A Shape-Note Singing Lesson" is available for free download at this address:
http://www.smithsonianeducation.org/educators/lesson_plans/shapenote.pdf
If you think your audience would find this valuable, I wish to invite you to include it as an External Link. We would be most grateful.
Thank you so much for your attention.
160.111.254.11 21:25, 10 April 2006 (UTC) Smithsonian Institution Center for Education and Museum Studies
This section contains the following claim:
"The shape note tradition that currently has the greatest number of participants is Sacred Harp music."
Does anyone have a source for this? I would bet that right now most shape note music is 7-shape sung in churches.
amity150
Okay, I went and rewrote it, but not too satisfactorily, so please help out. I was hoping there would be some entries that would help to illustrate some of this, but alas, we are going to have to write other webpages, which really should be done anyway! Let's all work on new sections to this article, with the hopeful aim of having it promoted to "featured article" one day soon. I think it would be great to have a section on the Sacred Harp Diaspora, to use Kiri Miller's term, and we also need to work on the entry on singing schools to describe how all this is learned. Amity150 22:57, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
While we looking at this block, is there something we can use rather than "Singings are also intermittently held which feature more modern seven-shape gospel music..." Although intermittently can mean "stopping and starting at regular intervals", I think with many people it will have a connotation of "off & on, not at regular intervals". Stamps-Baxter conventions usually meet annually or some other regular basis, just like Sacred Harp, et al. This might be taken in the wrong way, IMO. - Rlvaughn 03:41, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, I thought "intermittently" was the case, and meant it exactly in the sense you understood it: Not on a regularly scheduled basis. I took Missionary Baptists out of the list. Make whatever other changes are appropriate. I would love to see this article get longer and more detailed though. Amity150 04:06, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
My next question is on the use of the term "choral" to describe shape note traditions (first sentence). Is this a proper use of a musical term that I am not musically savvy enough to truly understand, or does it imply that shape note singing is a performance art, and if the latter then should the congregational nature of shape note singing be elaborated on somewhere in here? I'll admit I have infrequently seen impromptu "choruses" thrown together for "demonstration singings" but it has never been the historical norm, has it?
Well, it is some weeks later now, and still not having received an answer I went ahead and changed every appearance of the word "choral." Following the link created by the term choral showed that little/ nothing in the article pertained to shape note music. Sorry I didn't know how to sign my first post...now I do. Amity150 07:52, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
I learned to read music and sang in church choirs long before I got into shape note music and the shapes definitely help me. I miss them sometimes in choir practice. That is why I weakened the comments about this from "probably" to "may". In any case, "probably" needs justification (survey or something like that). wellsoberlin 15:46, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
I put in a little bit about modulation, under the theory that some reader might reasonably wonder, "if the shapes match the scale of a particular key, what happens when you change keys?"
I'm pretty certain that Sacred Harp music almost never modulates If anyone can contribute on this point concerning other shape note traditions that would be very helpful. Opus33 ( talk) 19:11, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
Hello Nuberger. Excuse me, but your revert didn't make any sense to me. You said I didn't have a reference source, but the source is right there, cited, namely the book by Dorothy Horn. It covers not just Sacred Harp but other shape note traditions.
I'd be willing to stop restoring this section if you can find a published source that indicates that modulation is found as a normal component of other shape note traditions. Sincerely, Opus33 ( talk) 17:14, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
I'm trying to start a centralized discussion of this at Talk:Sacred Harp. Please contribute there if you think you can help address the holes in our article-naming and subject-dividing logic. I don't think I know enough to undertake a redivision on my own. Wareh ( talk) 20:41, 16 September 2011 (UTC)
There is a large USA denomination called "United Pentecostal" as well as a couple of small ones elsewhere. There are many pentecostal churches in the USA that may sing 7 shape music that are not in that denomination. This needs to be clarified. SixWingedSeraph ( talk) 21:32, 12 October 2013 (UTC)
Cross-post from Talk:Sacred Harp
One of the most confusing thing for readers and writers about Sacred Harp music is that the terms "Sacred Harp" and "shape note" refer to several different, overlapping things:
The two main articles on the topics, Sacred Harp and Shape Note, have a lot of overlap: more than I can resolve right now and more than probably should be resolved unilaterally. The existing first sentences of the articles, though (which for the reader are going to define what subjects of the articles are, whatever we think), do set out two clear and distinct, if overlapping, focuses:
Wareh suggested years ago on the Shape note article that the logic of the article-naming and subject-dividing leave something to be desired, but until someone figures out a better solution, I've revised the beginning of Sacred Harp to make the de facto division clear, and I'm cross-referencing the articles to each other.
19:11, 26 April 2014 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Liberalartist ( talk • contribs)
For reasons I've explained more fully at Talk:Sacred Harp#Internal Inconsistencies and Ongoing Issues: Origin of music, scope and organization of coverage, I've added a sidebar to this page.
There are some big issues about the overall organization of Wikipedia's coverage of this subject matter and how to organize it into various articles. I think it's really important for editors involved in this group of articles to discuss the subject and come to a consensus, because the current state of affairs can be very confusing in some respects. Various people have occasionally brought these problems up on various talk pages, but I'm hoping everyone might congregate at the talk section above and figure out some solutions to disentangling these interrelated topics and organizing them into a sensible group of articles.
LiberalArtist ( talk) 02:29, 2 November 2014 (UTC)