Dave's Top Eight

1. Jerry Reed...Revisited by Darrell Toney (reviewed 6/07) (5 Stars)
2. Sounds Like Sunday by Janet Paschal (reviewed 5/07) (5 Stars)
3. True To The Call by Kingdom Heirs (reviewed 3/07) (4 1/2 Stars)
4. Revival by Gold City (reviewed 10/06) (4 1/2 Stars)
5. Get Away Jordan by Ernie Haase & Signature Sound (reviewed 2/07) (4 1/2 Stars)
6. Breakin' Chains by Three Bridges (reviewed 5/07) (4 1/2 Stars)
7. Big Sky by The Isaacs (reviewed 4/07)
8. Skywriting by Mercy's Well (reviewed 7/07)

Click title to purchase at CBD.com...click artist name to read Dave's Review. A CD will automatically fall out of the Top Eight after twelve months if no CD surpasses it before then.

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April 16, 2005

Shape Note Method

Shape Note Method
A brief history

Jesse Aiken’s seven-shape scale, as used in The Christian Minstrel

Musical notation with shape notes has been an integral element of Southern Gospel. With specific shapes defining the scale, singers with little formal music training could quickly learn to sing the four quartet parts. Beginning in 1846 with his publication of a songbook called The Christian Minstrel, Jesse Aiken popularized the seven-shape notation system. Employing seven unique shapes to correspond with the musical scale, Aiken’s notation system was based on a more primitive four-shape system originated by John Tufts in the early 18th century. Popular early American songbooks like the Sacred Harp and Southern Harmony employed Tufts’ system.

In the years following the Civil War, Aldine Kieffer of the Ruebush-Kieffer Company promoted a competing seven-shape system devised by his grandfather Joseph Funk, a noted publisher in the mid-1800s. At least five other publishers also employed different shapes for the three notes in the scale that were modified from the Tufts four-shape system. By 1876, Kieffer switched to Aiken’s original system in the spirit of standardization. Since Ruebush-Kieffer was one of the largest publishers of shape note songbooks at the time, the Aiken system became the de facto standard in the 20th century.

Singing schools became a popular social event in the following years. Groups were trained not only to sing using shape notes, but to teach as well. As a precursor to companies like Vaughan and Stamps-Baxter that employed quartets as traveling salesmen, Kieffer and other publishers in the late 1800s paid singing school instructors to peddle their songbooks.

The syllables “do,” “re,” “mi,” “fa,” “so,” “la,” and “ti” are not limited to Gospel music. The practice of singing the syllables has been used for almost a full millennium, dating back to the Benedictine monk who also invented music staff notation, Guido of Arezzo (995-1050), also known as Guido Monaco. The proper term for this practice is “solfege.” A similar practice of assigning syllables to the scale was used in India prior to Guido, and is called “sargam.” The classic musical film The Sound Of Music (1965) directed by Robert Wise and starring Julie Andrews popularized the solfege syllables in song.

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posted by David Bruce Murray @ 9:55:00 PM


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