Shape-Note Singing

Shape-Note Singing Shape-note singing refers to a method of teaching music to singers who were not musically literate; it was employed during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries by traveling “singing masters.” Originally in New England and then spreading to the South and West, these itinerant teachers came to towns, mostly at the invitation of the local church, to teach the local choirs how to sing. In the shape-note system, the vocal parts were no-tated using different shapes…