A shape-note singing workshop will be held tomorrow (June 19, 2010) at 4 p.m., at the West Virginia Folk Festival in Glenville, West Virginia. Tomorrow morning at 11 a.m., there will be a hymn-singing using a shape-note hymnbook. The singing and the workshop use the 7-shape method, not the fa-so-la method used in "Sacred Harp" singing. If the Lord wills, my youngest daughter and I will be at both events.

I do not read regular notation. I do lead congregational singing from time to time. We (the church of Christ in Reno, Ohio) sing without mechanical instruments. I find several advantages to shape-note singing:

1. I have a narrow vocal range and sometimes can't hit the high notes (or the low notes) as the songs are originally written. Also, especially when I'm nervous, I have trouble matching a note on a pitchpipe anyway. With shape-notes, it is easy to use relative pitch. Your "do" can be any note you want it to be, and the rest will follow.

2. The relationship between the first note of the song (usually do, mi, or so), the highest note, the lowest note, and the last note (usually do) are readily seen, which helps in choosing songs for congregational singing and in getting the tune right if I'm a little weak on leading it "by ear".

3. When I sing bass or tenor, it makes it easy to tell the relationship between my note and the lead note. I don't need to try to deal with treble clef and bass clef because a triangle means "do" in both clefs.

Here's a link to the West Virginia Folk Festival schedule for tmorrow: http://www.wvfolkfestival.org/Text/festival_schedule.html

Kent Davis (who has lost his cookie)