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:
“After that it came to my door. Now it lives here.
And of course: it is a soft sound, soft as a seal’s ear,
that was caught between a shape and a shape and then returned to me.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“In it he proves that all things are true and states how the truths of all contradictions may be reconciled physically, such as for example that white is black and black is white; that one can be and not be at the same time; that there can be hills without valleys; that nothingness is something and that everything, which is, is not. But take note that he proves all these unheard-of paradoxes without any fallacious or sophistical reasoning.”
—Savinien Cyrano De Bergerac (1619–1655)