As American society progresses through the means of technology, philosophy and social reform, it is often that the Baptist denomination of the Christian Church that is at the very end of this progression.Because the church clings so tightly to traditional practices and beliefs, you may find a church practicing a particular tradition or ritual that date back hundreds of years.For a historian, this is a wonderful opportunity to get a real glimpse into the past.This preservation of tradition is what has kept shape note singing alive throughout the twenty-first century.Although some may argue that shape note music is dwindling, most people involved in shape notes will tell you that it is on the upward curve.They may note the addition of a new publisher to the market and a new singing school in Kingsport, Tennessee in the year 2000.However, shape notes have not regained the vitality they once enjoyed in the latter part of the nineteenth century.Shape notes began as a musical innovation in the early part of the nineteenth century and have grown into the twenty-first century as a way of life for church congregations tucked away in hollers of the southern Appalachian region.Taking a contemporary look at shape notes found their way in this region and why they have stayed is an important part of understanding them.

After shape note singing found its way into the Appalachian region, it never left.It stayed with the people and tradition of the area.Despite its long history in the region, shape note singing in America actually originated in New England.Although this tradition has been practiced for hundreds of years, the system of shape notes has had many changes. Through the church and singing of the Psalms during the eighteenth century, religious groups, such as the Puritans, brought many musical ideas to New England.These musical theories and practices originated throughout Europe.Specifically, it was the Italian Gudio d’Arezzo who, in A.D. 990, adapted the musical scale to syllables in order to be sung.D’Arezzo himself traveled to France and England where he undoubtedly shared and gained musical theories and practices.By the time that William Shakespeare was on the theatrical circuit in England, one musical observer suggested that “this system became simplified to four syllables fa, sol, la and mi.”[1]This essentially was the system that was brought to New England by the Puritans.

In the beginning of the eighteenth century, the Puritan minister, John Tufts, revamped this system again, in order to try to bring the ability to read and sing music to a wider audience.One of Tuft’s contributions was the addition of “F, S, L, and M to represent the major steps on the scale, corresponding directly to the solmization syllables fa, sol, la and mi.”[2]He borrowed from the European style that D’Arezzo originated.This contribution is what the foundation for the original four-shape system, known as fasola, was based.It was not until the publication of The Easy Instructor, around 1801, by William Smith and William Little, that shape notes actually appeared.The book was printed in Albany, New York, by Websters & Skinner and Daniel Steele, who were proprietors of the copyright.Steele was a music teacher who used this system to teach the four-note system to aspiring students.The publication of the book was monumental because it “complemented the oral four syllable solfege system already in place in the singing schools and helped set off a publishing explosion of the genre.”[3]This publishing genre would continue through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and into the twenty-first century beginning with “at least 38 shape note books [that] were published during the next 50 years”[4] after the publication of The Easy Instructor and by the year 2002 eight publishing companies would still remain.

As with any new idea introduced to modify or transform a traditional way of doing things, shape note singing came under the close scrutiny of formally trained musicians, most of whom had been trained in Europe.The fact that shape notes were created in America “was cause for reluctance by many people in accepting shape notes.”[5]Perhaps if shape note singing had been marketed as “patriotic,” children would be learning this style in the public school system today.Shape note singers and sometimes the notes themselves were referred to as “dunce notes, buckwheat notes, patent notes”[6] or “square-toes.”[7]The debate continued in the early twenty-first century in shape note singing communities, around the country, as to which system they found better.

The singing school system, which also originated in New England, emerged as the way in which the shape notes would be taken out to the community and church congregations.Singing schools were in place before the creation of shape notes, but once shape notes arrived they provided the perfect setting in which the new system could be taught.Prior to singing schools, churches rarely sang and if they did, the songs were not cherished by the congregation, as they would be in nineteenth and twentieth century. Rather, they were tolerated.When singing did take place, there was no musical accompaniment and usually only selected verses of the Psalms were sung.The verses would be “lined out” in a call and response type method by the leader.Lining out the hymns also dealt with the issue of illiteracy among the congregation.The lining out method did not disappear with the introduction of shape notes; it was the simplest method to learn.Because of its simplicity this singing traditionwas carried out into the twentieth century.Ralph Stanley, a prominent bluegrass musician who was featured on the 2001 Lost Highway Records “Oh, Brother Where Art Thou” soundtrack, attributed the lining out method with how he first learned to sing.

The singing school was an essential tool in the rise in popularity of shape notes for many reasons, one being that it was set up in such a way that the entire congregation or community could learn to sing together.These singing schools quickly became social events as women and men came together in a social setting outside of church.According to Keith Willard, “it soon outstripped its purely church-centered focus and became an integral part of the social life of the community.”[8]

Controversy over singing in church involved many issues, such as whether or not to sing in church, and the use of Psalms or hymns.The singing school itself emerged outside of the church, because many churches did not foster an environment conducive for singing or did not support it in conjunction with the worship service. The original idea behind forming these singing schools was to improve the quality of congregational singing in church. The schools also offered the opportunity to many to obtain some kind of formal education for the first time.In his book White Spirituals in the Southern Uplands, The Story of the Fasola Folk, Their Songs, Singings, and “Buckwheat Notes,” George Pullen Jackson described what the first singing schools might have been like:

A hall in a tavern was the usual place of meeting.The landlord made the rent cheap in consideration of the patronage which his barroom enjoyed during recess and afterwards. The singers brought their own candles, used improvised benches on which to lay the book and to set the candles, and sat in a semicircle two or three rows deep.The pupils were taught the clefs, syllables or notes, keys, note lengths.[9]

With the singing schools roughly in place in communities all over New England, it was easily adapted to allow for shape note singing schoolmasters to come into communities.Shape note singing did not require extensive formal singing on the part of the singing schoolmasters.Learning to sing the shape notes also did not require an instrument thus singing schoolmasters could travel to rural areas regardless of whether or not there was a piano or other large musical instrument.

Eventually, singing schools made their way south into the Appalachian region during the early part of the nineteenth century.The first teachers were of course outsiders, but, as more singing schools were held and more graduates produced, students soon found themselves as singing schoolmasters.They continued to carry this form of music education throughout the mountains of the rural South.For rural church communities that could not afford or were unable due to their isolated location to obtain musical instruments, shape note singing provided a practical way for their congregations to sing.Also, it was much more financially feasible for singing schools to be held in a community rather than for a single church to hire a music teacher.

Shape notes began to lose popularity in the North due to “economic prosperity, European influences, urban-continental-Nordic immigration and the growth of cities.”[10]These circumstances did not exist for the South and therefore shape notes held a greater longevity in the South.The ease with which a singing schoolmaster could travel into the Appalachian region was also a major factor in why shape notes came to the mountains.Coastal towns in the South had easier access to musical instruments and therefore the music developed differently than in the isolated mountain regions.

Shape notes continued to appeal to Southerners as hymnals began to include folk hymns in their repertoire.The first of these hymnals was Kentucky Harmony, printed in Harrisonburg, Virginia by Ananias Davisson in 1816.The book contains 165 songs of which “40 may be classified as folk hymns . . . arranged or notated from oral tradition.”[11]

There were other reasons that shape notes began to flourish in the South.One reason was because of Southern singing-school teachers who began to create and publish their own shape note books.This was evident in the title of William Walkers first shape note book in 1835, The Southern Harmony.This book was extremely popular and “in 1866 Walker claimed that 600,000 copies had been sold.”[12]The Southern Harmony was the “first far-southern-made song book of the four-shape brand to gain long and wide recognition in its rural home territory.”[13]Nine years later, in 1844, B.F. White published the Sacred Harp in Georgia.The Sacred Harp became the most continuously used four-shape notation book with many editions.Singing groups, well into the twenty-first century, came together to sing only Sacred Harp tunes.

There exists a controversial story told in B.F. McLemore's compilation Tracing the Roots of Southern Gospel Singers behind the creation and the accreditation of The Southern Harmony and the Sacred Harp.William Walker and B.F. White were brother-in-laws and apparently completed the original manuscript of the Southern Harmony together.The two men agreed that William Walker to take the book north to have it published.Without the knowledge ofWhite, Walker and the publisher changed the manuscript and published the book with credit going only to Walker.This was the last time the two reportedly ever talked to each other and White moved from South Carolina, where they both lived, to Georgia. What made the Sacred Harp and Southern Harmony significant was that they are the only two four-note books that have continued to be used into the twenty-first century.

Walker went on to publish another book in 1866 entitled the Christian Harmony.The Christian Harmony used the seven-notation system.Nathan Chopin and Joseph L. Dickerson introduced this seven-note system in an 1810 edition of The Musical Instructor.However, it was not until 1846 that Jesse B. Aiken compiled The Christian Minstrel that introduced the note-heads that have endured for 156 years; they are the only shape note heads used in the publication of songbooks and hymnals in 2002.Aiken’s shapes have been the standard notations for all seven-shape rural songbook publishers in the South since about 1883.When Walker published the Christian Harmony, he attempted to use Aiken’s shapes and received Aiken’s permission but the publisher of Aiken’s book would not allow it.

Aiken’s shapes were popular in the South but his book the Christian Minstrel never gained much popularity there.Perhaps this was because “ a number of Southern teachers shielded away from [Aiken’s book], made their own song book, notated their songs in seven note-shapes . . . and then used their own influence and energy to introduce these books in their own territory.”[14]

Shape notes were gaining popularity in the South at the same time they were losing popularity in the North.Further causing a rift in this division was the Civil War.Most publishing companies halted production during wartime. When the war had ended and the Southern publishers resumed printing they were more committed to their own systems and authors than ever before.The table created below illustrates the trend in shape note writing and publishing in the South during the nineteenth century.
 

Four-shape books published (1801-1855)	Location of Author	Location of Publisher
South	19	10
North	11	21
Unknown	8	7

Seven-shape books published (1832-1878)	Location of Author	Location of Publisher
South	8	5
North	6	9
Unknown	2	2

This table illustrates the rise in publishers located in the South, from 1832-1878, 31% of shape note books published were in the South compared with 26% from 1801-1855.

Perhaps the only reason that Aikin’s method, developed in Philadelphia, remained was because it was the last system to be universally adapted before the war broke out.When William Walker’s Christian Harmony appeared in 1866 it was “the last of the shape -note-head variation.”[15]

Even Primitive Baptists in the South, who primarily sang from tuneless hymnbooks, had connections to shape notes.Certainly Primitive Baptist shape note singers were in the minority.However, some were engaged in teaching singing schools.Church Elder, Wilson Thompson, a singing school teacher in 1810, did not record which materials he used but “later Primitive Baptists who eere involved in this work probably used Williams Walker’s Southern Harmony, B.F. White’s Sacred Harp or one of numerous other Southern tune books.”[16]In her book on Appalachian Primitive Baptist Churches, Beverly Patterson revealed that many of the older church members reported “participat[ing] as young people in singing schools at their own churches” and “heard Primitive Baptist’s singing from memory songs [that] appeared in 19^th century tune books such as William Walker’s Southern Harmony and Christian Harmony.”[17]

There were many contributing factors to shape notes and singing schools moving to the southern area of the Appalachians and staying there.The South was not faced with the external forces of heavy immigration, economic prosperity and growing urban centers that threatened shape note singing’s longevity in the North.Shape notes also presented rural Southerners with their first opportunity of some type of formal education and introduced them to an idea that everyone in the community was familiar with.The mobility of shape note singing schoolmasters and their travels through the mountains provided a quick way to spread this musical tradition.Due to the lower economic status of many southern Appalachia dwellers, shape notes provided a feasible answer to improving the musical quality of congregations.As shape notes grew in popularity, many Southern writers and publishers emerged that included folk hymns in their books.

Shape notes were being sung in Watauga County before it even became a county.The earliest documented presence of shape notes in Watauga County comes from a 1973 interview conducted by Dr. Charles Isley with Mrs. Carrie Harmon.Harmon was the granddaughter of Joseph Palmer.She told Isley that her “grandfather was born in 1823 in Alexander County and studied shape note singing under William Walker as a boy.”[18]This is a remarkable claim for Watauga County because Walker was one of the leading publishers of shape note hymnals of his time.Harmon noted that Palmer sang from Walker’s Southern Harmony.“When [Palmer] married he moved to Leander in Avery County” which later became part of Watauga County.Palmer brought with him his knowledge of shape notes and may have been the first shape note singer or teacher of what later became Watauga County.He began teaching a shape note singing school in “an old one-room log house used for school and church.”[19]He taught the four-shape fasola system of the Southern Harmony and “used a cloth chart to teach the shapes.”[20] He continued to teach throughout the Civil War and “changed to the seven-shape system after the Christian Harmony was published.”[21]

Watauga County was formed after a bill was passed in 1849 by the state legislature, “that a county be and is hereby laid off and established by the name Watauga to be composed of the counties of Ashe, Wilkes, Caldwell and Yancey.”[22]When Watauga County became an official county of North Carolina, it was a “high, rough, inaccessible, mountainous region and remained such until the time of modern highways and transportation.”[23]This isolation was a main contributor to why traditional practices were able to stay preserved for so long.The first churches built in the county, were rustic and simple“the pews were made of logs split in half . . . this type of building soon sprung up in the community.”[24]

The church carried the responsibility of moral force and adherence in the community and at the heart of this moral guidance was the sermons.These sermons usually dealt with gambling, attire and dancing.Ministers usually were not on salary and doubled as a farmer or schoolteacher.Watauga County churches used the lining out method before shape notes became a part of the churches.In his work on the history of Watauga County, Dr. David Whitner, whom Whitner Hall on the Appalachian State University campus is named after, shared an amusing anecdote of a preacher and his congregation “attempting” to line out a song:

The pastor arose and said, “my specks are bad and my eyes are dim; I can scarcely see to read this hymn.”The congregation mistook the preacher’s apology for poor vision and sang the apology as though it were a line of a hymn.The preacher announced again, “ I didn’t mean that was a hymn-I merely meant my eyes are dim.”The congregation sang again.By this time the preacher was somewhat disgusted and said, “If that’s all you brethren know, I will take my hat and go.”The congregation sang this statement back to the preacher; still believing it was part of the hymn.[25]

Some early churches in Watauga County believed that the “only acceptable way to praise the Lord was by voice, not by instruments.”[26]This belief made Watauga County a prime place for shape notes to be successful.

Although the earliest record of shape notes in Watauga County may be attributed to Joseph Palmer, many other Watauga natives were responsible for spreading shape notes throughout the county.Solomon and Phillip Younce were brothers and their parents helped settle the area.John Younce, their father, moved to a town near Winston, North Carolina after the Revolutionary War.Solomon was born in 1798.Solomon’s grandson, John Oliver, studied shape notes under his uncle Philip, in about 1895.Ivan Younce “studied under John Oliver, went to Normal School in Valdese and studied also at the J. B. Vaughn School in Chattanooga.”[27]L.C. Oliver was John Oliver’s grandson and studied briefly under his grandfather.L.C. went on to study “under his wife [Margaret]’s father, Jim Burkett.”[28]L.C. Oliver taught the choir at Mabel Baptist Church from approximately 1950 to 1997, when he was diagnosed with Alzheimers.His son, Neil Oliver took over as choir director since 1997.Neil has grown up singing shape notes, which he learned from his father, and said that “they were just a way of life for him”.The entire family carried on the tradition of shape notes in the community and remained one of the strongest reasons why shape notes continued to be sung in Watauga County.In his book History of Watauga County, North Carolina, John Preston Arthur commented that the Younce family was a “very musical, pious and independent in thought.”[29]The book was written in 1915, but his comments still held true when a June 4^th, 1997 Watauga Democrat article on the Oliver’s (whose ancestors were the Younce’s), reported “it’s plain to see time hasn’t made a change in the Oliver family ties that were shaped by their shape note tradition.”

Another family that has made a large impact on the shape note and gospel community was the Hayes.Stuart B. Hayes was the choir director at Mt. Lebanon (established in 1890) for sixty years.He was the uncle of “the Hayes Family Gospel Quartet in Watauga County . . . taught singing schools in many churches . . . and composed over one hundred songs, many of which were published.”[30]

Bethel Baptist Church also played a role in keeping shape note singing alive in Watauga County.The church was “constituted in July 4, 1851, from Cove Creek Baptist Church.”[31]In 1941 Mt. Dale Baptist Church, approximately two miles down Mt. Dale Road from Bethel Baptist, was constituted from Bethel.Clint Cornett and his wife Ruth attended Bethel Baptist before the formation of Mt. Dale and walked nearly a total of four miles every Sunday to attend church service.Clint Cornett has led the choir in shape notes since 1954.Although he grew up with shape notes, his father, Clyde Cornett, led the choir before him, Clint actually taught himself to read the shape notes.Clint’s grandfather on his mother’s side, the Phillips family, taught shape notes as well.

One factor that aided shape note singing in Watuaga County was that small rural congregations could practice more autonomy than the big denominational churches.At both Mabel Baptist and Mt. Dale Baptist, the congregation sings from the Church Hymnal, printed by the Tennessee Music Printing Company, even though the hymnal is out of print.

The most “popular book sold in Watauga County during the latter part of the nineteenth century was the Christian Harmony.”[32]Mary Greene, a Watauga County native and Appalachian Music instructor at Appalachian State University, remembers, “[her] grandmother (born about the time of the Civil War) sang out of the Christian Harmony.”[33]She still owns two of her grandmother’s copies that are “worn well.”

In the 1920’s there were approximately fifty publishing houses that continued producing songbooks well into the forties, when shape notes hit their peak and then began a sharp decline.When shape notes were still “very alive” in Watauga County, county singings were held.Neil Oliver had attended county signings and Saturday night singings all his life.These singings were different shape note singing churches in the community coming together to sing.Florence Wilson, a native from Newland, North Carolina recalls when her Uncle Joe Hartley attending singings:

He wanted to have something special, so he goes up there above his house on that hill on Grandfather Mountain; they called it the singing ground.They have a get-together, and they invited in a lot of singers from one place or another like Boone, and different places you know.And they’d just have this singing.[34]

Charles Isley attributed many reasons for shape notes losing their zeal in the southern Appalachians to “urbanization, media entertainment, pianos and other musical instruments in homes and churches, growing public school music.”[35]Clint Cornett made observations about the decline of shape notes in Watauga County.He believed that singing started to become more competitive in the forties, thus leading to the decline.He noticed a decline in shape notes in the sixties, which he partly attributes to “older people who didn’t bother to teach it to younger folks.”[36]

There are factors in place that have kept shape note singing strong in the western part of the county.Isley, Cornett, and Oliver all stated that the main reasons for the western part of the county holding so strongly to the shape note tradition were the families there, namely the Cornetts and Olivers.

Shape notes are a sparsely known treasure of America’s early history as a nation.To those that know and sing shape notes, they are more than a piece of history; they are a way of life.Anyone who has had the experience of listening to shape note music being performed by a choir knows the distinctive, yet haunting characteristics of this cherished music.Shape notes stand out as not only a style of singing, but also as a separate type of music.The spiritual gust with which singers perform this music in remind the listener that their faith and music are not mutually exclusive.People who have been trained in traditional styles might not appreciate the skill of shape note singing that comes after years of experience until they try it on their own.Shape notes have a primitive sound that alerts the listener to the fact that they are a tradition that has remained intact for the past two hundred years.Shape notes publishers, teachers and singers have carved out a place for themselves in the history of American folk music.

PRIMARY

Armistead, David and Janet, Music Unto the Churches: Fulfilling God’s Call.Carthage: Missionaries of Music, Published by author.

Church Hymnal.Cleveland: Tennessee Music and Printing Company, 1951.

Cornett, Clint, shape note choir leader.Interview by author, 16 February 2002, Vilas.Tape Recording.

Greene, Mary, “The Christian Harmony.” http://users.boone.net/blueridgemusic/two.html (28 October 2001)

Isley, Charles, “Interview notes from interview with Dr. Charles Isley and Carrie Harmon.”April 1976.Dr. Charles Isley’s personal collection.

Isley, Charles, professor of music.Interview by author, 11 March 2002, Boone.Tape Recording.

Oliver, Neil, shape note choir leader.Interview by author, 6 April 2002, Mabel.Notes.

Towler, Charles L., ed.Redeemed.Cleveland: Gospel Heritage Music, 2002.

Walker, William, Christian Harmony.Philadelphia: Miller’s Bible and Publishing House, 1873.

Walker, William, Southern Harmony.Philadelphia: E.W. Miller, 1854.

SECONDARY

Arthur, John Preston, A History of Watauga County, North Carolina.Richmond: Everett Waddey Company, 1915.

Bealle, John, Public Workshop, Private Faith: Sacred Harp and American Folksong.Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1997.

Card, Edith.“The Tradition of Shaped-note Music: A History of is Development.” Foxfire (Garden City), no. 7 (1982): 280-346.

Cauthen, Joyce H. ed., Benjamin Lloyd’s Hymn Book: A Primitive Baptist Song Tradition.Montgomery: Alabama Folklife Association, 1999.

Cheek, Curtis Leo, “The Singing School and Christian Shape note Tradition: Residuals in 20^th Century American Hymnody.”Ph. D. diss., University of Southern California, 1968.

Dorgan, Howard, The Airwaves of Zion: Radio and Religion in Appalachia.Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1993.

Drummond, R. Paul, A Portion for the Singers: A History of Music Among Primitive Baptists Since 1800.Atwood: Christian Baptist Library and Publishing Company, 1998.

Goff, James R. Jr., Close Harmony: A History of Southern Gospel.Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002.

Isley, Charles, Celebrating Freedom and Faith.Boone: From the private collection of Charles Isley, 1994.

Jackson, George Pullen, White Spirituals in the Southern Uplands: The Story of the Fasola Folk, Their songs, Singings and “Buckwheat Notes”.New York: Dover Publications, 1933.

Kimzey, Anne H.F., “The Deasons: A Christian Harmony Family.” In In the Spirit: Alabama’s Sacred Music Traditions. Ed. Henry Willet, 53-50.Montgomery: Black Belt Press, 1995.

McClemore, B.F., Tracing the Roots of Southern Gospel Singers.Jasper: Privately printed, 1988.

Montell, William Lynnwood, Singing the Glory Down: Amateur Gospel Music in South Kentucky 1900-1990.Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1991.

Moore, Warren, Mountain Voices: A Legacy of the Blue Ridge and Great Smokies.Winston Salem: John F. Blair, 1998.

Moser, Mabel, “Christian Singing at Etowah.”Appalachian Journal 1, n.s. 1, (Autumn 1972) : 151-156.

“North Carolina Folk Heritage Award 1989-1996: Quay Smathers 1991 Folk Heritage Award.”North Carolina Folklore Journal: A Treasury of Tar Heel Artists 44, n.s. 1-2 (1997): 83.

Patterson, Beverly Bush, The Sound of the Dove: Singing in Appalachian Primitive Baptist Churches.Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1995.

Presgraves, Jim ed. Two Notable Shape note Leaders.Wytheville:Bookworm and Silverfish, 1995.

“Sharon Kellam” In Women’s Work: Carrying the Culture. eds.Sharon Stapleton Fairweather and Debbie DeVita, 26-28.Boone: Southern Appalachian Historical Association, 1991.

Smith, Betty N., Ballads, Songs and Religious Music in the Southern Appalachians.Berea: Berea College Appalachian Center, 1976.

Whitner, Daniel J., History of Watauga County.Boone, Private publisher, 1949.

Willard, Keith.“A Short Shaped Note Singing History.” http://fasola.org/introduction/short_history.html, (20 October 2001).

Wilson, Charles Reagan and William Ferris eds.“Shape note Singing Schools” Encyclopedia of Southern Culture.Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989.