HOME
*





Kentucky Harmony
The ''Kentucky Harmony'' is a shape note tunebook, published in 1816 by Ananias Davisson. It is the first Southern shape-note tunebook. The first edition of the ''Kentucky Harmony'' was 140 pages and contained 143 tunes. Davisson released four more editions: 1817 (which expanded the book to 160 pages), 1819, 1821 and 1826. The 1817 edition used fewer northern tunes but included more Southern folk melodies; the three subsequent editions made only slight changes to the 1817 edition. The ''Kentucky Harmony'' was influenced by the work of John Wyeth and his two "Repositories of Sacred Music", with 98 of the tunes in ''Kentucky Harmony'' also being found in Wyeth's books. But Davisson rarely printed any piece of music exactly as it appeared in the books of others. Unlike some books printed prior to and after it, the ''Kentucky Harmony'' consistently contained four part settings for its tunes. Fifty-seven of the 143 tunes of the first edition are fuguing tunes, and the first Southern fu ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Shape Note
Shape notes are a musical notation designed to facilitate congregational and social singing. The notation, introduced in late 18th century England, became a popular teaching device in American singing schools. Shapes were added to the noteheads in written music to help singers find pitches within major and minor scales without the use of more complex information found in key signatures on the staff. Shape notes of various kinds have been used for over two centuries in a variety of music traditions, mostly sacred music but also secular, originating in New England, practiced primarily in the Southern United States for many years, and now experiencing a renaissance in other locations as well. Nomenclature Shape notes have also been called character notes and patent notes, respectfully, and buckwheat notes and dunce notes, pejoratively. Overview The idea behind shape notes is that the parts of a vocal work can be learned more quickly and easily if the music is printed i ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Ananias Davisson
Ananias Davisson (February 2, 1780 – October 21, 1857) was a singing school teacher, printer and compiler of shape note tunebooks. He is best known for his 1816 compilation ''Kentucky Harmony'', which is the first Southern shape-note tunebook. According to musicologist George Pullen Jackson, Davisson's compilations are "pioneer repositories of a sort of song that the rural South really liked." Life and career Davisson was born February 2, 1780, in Shenandoah County, Virginia. His wife was named Ann (surname unknown); they had no children. In 1804 he bought land in Rockingham County, supplementing his income as a farmer by conducting singing classes in the Shenandoah Valley. He established a printing shop in Harrisonburg in 1816, and in that year published the Kentucky Harmony, the first Southern shape note tunebook. As a printer, he cultivated a network of singing school teachers and composers in Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky who sold his tunebooks and sent him their ow ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


John Wyeth
John Wyeth (1770–1858) was a printer in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania who is best-known for printing ''Wyeth's Repository of Sacred Music, Part Second'' (Harrisburg, PA: 1813), which marks an important transition in American music. Like the original ''Repository'' of 1810, ''Part Second'' used the four-shape system of Little and Smith in ''The Easy Instructor'' (Philadelphia, PA: 1801) to appeal to a wider audience; but its pioneering inclusion American folk tunes influenced all subsequent folk hymn, camp meeting, and shape note collections. Musicologist Warren Steel sees ''Wyeth's Repository of Sacred Music, Part Second'' as marking "the end of the age of New England composer-compilers (1770-1810) and the beginning of the age of southern collector-compilers (1816-1860)."David Warren Steel, "John Wyeth and the Development of Southern Folk Hymnody", ''Music from the Middle Ages Through the 20th Century: Essays in Honor of Gwynn McPeek,'' Carmelo P. Comberiati and Matthew C. Steel, eds. ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Fuguing Tune
The fuguing tune (often fuging tune) is a variety of Anglo-American vernacular choral music. It first flourished in the mid-18th century and continues to be composed today. Description Fuguing tunes are sacred music, specifically, Protestant hymns. They are written for a four-part chorus singing ''a cappella''. George Pullen Jackson has described the fuguing tune as follows: A well-known fuguing tune that is typical of the form is "Northfield", written in 1800 by Jeremiah Ingalls. The text is by Isaac Watts: Variety in fuguing tunes George Pullen Jackson's description above gives a common form for a fuguing tune, but there are variations. Jackson describes the entrance order of the four parts as "bottom to top" (Bass-Tenor-Alto-Treble), but this is not the only possible order. Indeed, in the fuguing tunes printed in ''The Sacred Harp, 1991 edition'', it is not even the most common one; the most common order is Bass-Tenor-Treble-Alto. There are many other orders possible ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Southern Harmony
The ''Southern Harmony, and Musical Companion'' is a shape note hymn and tune book compiled by William Walker, first published in 1835. The book is notable for having originated or popularized several hymn tunes found in modern hymnals and shape note collections like ''The Sacred Harp''. The music and its notation The roots of ''Southern Harmony'' singing, like the Sacred Harp, are found in the American colonial era, when singing schools convened to provide instruction in choral singing, especially for use in church services. This practice remained popular with Baptists in the South long after it fell from use in other regions. In 1801, a book called ''The Easy Instructor'' by William Smith and William Little was published for the use of this movement; its distinguishing feature was the use of four separate shapes that indicated the notes according to the rules of solfege. A triangle indicated ''fa'', a circle ''sol'', a square ''la'' and a diamond, ''mi.'' To avoid pro ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

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. Sacred Harp music is performed ''a cappella'' (voice only, without instruments) and originated as Protestant music. The music and its notation The name of the tradition comes from the title of the shape-not ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Irving Lowens
Irving Lowens (19 August 1916 – 14 November 1983) was an American musicologist, critic, and librarian in the Washington, D.C. area. He served as the chief music critic at the ''Washington Star'' newspaper, the Assistant Head of the music division of the Library of Congress, and the dean of the Peabody Institute in Baltimore, Maryland. Lowens was president of the Music Library Association, executive board member of the American Musicological Society, and founder of the Music Critics Association of North America and the Sonneck Society, later renamed the Society for American Music. Lowens was instrumental in improving working conditions for American critics as well as increasing standards of criticism. His main interests and scholarly works concerned American tunebooks, of which he held a significant collection. This collection contains some 2,000 volumes including American hymnals and psalm books from the 18th and 19th centuries. The collection now resides at the Moravian Musi ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Shenandoah Valley
The Shenandoah Valley () is a geographic valley and cultural region of western Virginia and the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia. The valley is bounded to the east by the Blue Ridge Mountains, to the west by the eastern front of the Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians (excluding Massanutten Mountain), to the north by the Potomac River and to the south by the James River. The cultural region covers a larger area that includes all of the valley plus the Virginia highlands to the west, and the Roanoke Valley to the south. It is physiographically located within the Ridge and Valley province and is a portion of the Great Appalachian Valley. Geography Named for the river that stretches much of its length, the Shenandoah Valley encompasses eight counties in Virginia and two counties in West Virginia. * Augusta County, Virginia *Clarke County, Virginia *Frederick County, Virginia *Page County, Virginia *Rockbridge County, Virginia *Rockingham County, Virginia * Shenandoah County, Virg ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Virginia
Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth are shaped by the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Chesapeake Bay, which provide habitat for much of its flora and fauna. The capital of the Commonwealth is Richmond; Virginia Beach is the most-populous city, and Fairfax County is the most-populous political subdivision. The Commonwealth's population was over 8.65million, with 36% of them living in the Baltimore–Washington metropolitan area. The area's history begins with several indigenous groups, including the Powhatan. In 1607, the London Company established the Colony of Virginia as the first permanent English colony in the New World. Virginia's state nickname, the Old Dominion, is a reference to this status. Slave labor and land acquired from displaced native tribes fueled the ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  




Shape Note
Shape notes are a musical notation designed to facilitate congregational and social singing. The notation, introduced in late 18th century England, became a popular teaching device in American singing schools. Shapes were added to the noteheads in written music to help singers find pitches within major and minor scales without the use of more complex information found in key signatures on the staff. Shape notes of various kinds have been used for over two centuries in a variety of music traditions, mostly sacred music but also secular, originating in New England, practiced primarily in the Southern United States for many years, and now experiencing a renaissance in other locations as well. Nomenclature Shape notes have also been called character notes and patent notes, respectfully, and buckwheat notes and dunce notes, pejoratively. Overview The idea behind shape notes is that the parts of a vocal work can be learned more quickly and easily if the music is printed i ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Hymnals
A hymnal or hymnary is a collection of hymns, usually in the form of a book, called a hymnbook (or hymn book). Hymnals are used in congregational singing. A hymnal may contain only hymn texts (normal for most hymnals for most centuries of Christian history); written melodies are extra, and more recently harmony parts have also been provided. Hymnals are omnipresent in churches but they are not often discussed; nevertheless, liturgical scholar Massey H. Shepherd once observed: "in all periods of the Church’s history, the theology of the people has been chiefly molded by their hymns." Elements and Format Since the twentieth century, singer-songwriter hymns have become common, but in previous centuries, generally poets wrote the words, and musicians wrote the tunes; the texts are known and indexed by their first lines ("incipits") and the hymn tunes are given names, sometimes geographical (the tune "New Britain" for the incipit "Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound"). The hym ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


1816 In Music
This is a list of music-related events in 1816. Events *January 9 – Ludwig van Beethoven obtains custody of his nephew Karl, after a legal battle with the boy's mother.MusicandHistory.com – 1816
. Accessed 24 November 2013
* – The première of 's new cantata, ''Giunone'', takes place at the , Naples, where the composer is musical director.
[...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]