1. Populist Sacred Music
of the Nineteenth Century

2. Sacred Music
• Evangelical revival movement
• Continued use of music composed by the First New
England School
• Shape-note vs. Traditional European Notation
• Uneducated vs. educated

3. Shape-Note Singing
• What is it?
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•
•
•
•
Fa: 1st, 4th (Triangle)
Sol: 2nd, 5th (Oval)
La: 3rd, 6th ( Square)
Mi: 7th (Diamond)
Standard Solfege
• European origins (Italy, early Renaissance)
• Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Ti (Si)
• Easy to learn (?)
• http://fasola.org/

4. Written Shape-Note Notation

5. Musical Reformists
• Educated vs. uneducated
• European vs. American
• Shape-note and First New England School
considered to be inferior
• Billings doing his own thing = bad?
• Inferiority complex?
• European ideals
• German masters: Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Schumann

6. Populist Hymns
• Educated composers using European ideals
• Thomas Hastings (1784-1872)
• Rock of Ages, Cleft for Me
• William Bradbury (1816-1868)
• Tune: Woodworth
• Lowell Mason

7. Lowell Mason
• 1792-1872
• Leader of the musical reform
movement
• European ideals, but realistic
• Music Education in public
schools
• Thanks for the job!
• Boston, 1838
• Banker turned musician
• Publishing ($$$)
• Ex: Nearer, My God, to Thee
• Hymns  Strophic
• Homophonic (Chordal)
• Syllabic vs. melismatic

8. Revival Movements
• Second (Great) Awakening
• What was it?
• c. 1790 – 1840; enormous
increase around 1820
• Methodists, Baptists
• First Great Awakening (1730s
and 40s)
• Third Great Awakening
(1850s to 1900)
• Uh…How many times can we
be greatly awoken?
• Hybrid: religious, social,
recreational, multicultural,
cross-generational

9. Folk Hymns
• Aka: White Spirituals
• “The Sacred Harp” (1844)
• Shape-note tradition
• Southern US, Appalachia
• Rural areas; Camp meetings
• Repetitive
• No literacy, no problem!
• Ex: Amazing Grace
• Ex: I’m Going Home

11. The Sacred Harp (1844)

12. Black Spirituals
• Aka Spirituals, Negro Spirituals
• (Yes, they’re still published under this category.)
• Traced back to work songs and field hollers
• Often call and response
• Hidden messages disguised in Bible stories and imagery
• Hebrews in Egypt
• “Promised Land” “Let My People Go”
• Fisk Jubilee Singers (1871)
• Former slaves
• University Treasurer/Music Director: George L. White
• Performances across country; fascination; novelty
• Ex Swing Low Sweet Chariot (1909)
• Youtube: Fisk Jubilee Singers

13. Fisk Jubilee Singers c. 1872