Shape Note
Shape notes are a music notation designed to facilitate congregational and community singing. The notation, introduced in 1801, became a popular teaching device in American singing schools. Shapes were added to the note heads 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 but also secular, originating in New England, practiced primarily in the Southern region of the United States for many years, and now experiencing a renaissance in other locations as well.
Read more about Shape Note: Shape Notes, Four-shape Vs. Seven-shape Systems, Effectiveness of Shape Notes, Origin and Early History, Rise of Seven-shape Systems, Currently Active Shape Note Traditions, Nomenclature
Famous quotes containing the words shape and/or note:
“I know that each stage is not going to last forever. I used to think that when he was little. Whenever he was in a bad stage I thought that he was going to be like that for the rest of his life and that I’d better do something to shape him up. When he was in a good state, I thought he was going to be a perfect child and I would never have to worry; he was always going to stay that way.”
—Anonymous Parent of An Eight-Year-Old. As quoted in Between Generations by Ellen Galinsky, ch. 4 (1981)
“There was a saviour
Rarer than radium,
Commoner than water, crueller than truth;
Children kept from the sun
Assembled at his tongue
To hear the golden note turn in a groove....”
—Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)