Does anybody recognize this shape-note s

Subject: Does anybody recognize this shape-note s
From: leeneia
Date: 19 Dec 06 - 09:21 AM

Yesterday I was going through the Catholic "Breaking Bread" hymnbook for 2005, and I came upon a song called "Rejoice With All the Saints." The words, I saw, are contemporary, but the tune came from "Southern Harmony, 1854."

Just now I sent the MIDI to Joe Offer for posting here so that you can listen to it. It has a wonderful, spare sound that says "mountain music" to me.

When we see a hymn collection with a date like that and the word "Harmony" in the title, we are almost certainly dealing with a shape-note collection. So far I have heard of Southern Harmony, Virginia Harmony (I think), Missouri Harmony and Columbian Harmony.

"Rejoice with All the Saints" is a shape-note song with the serial number filed off, as Liz the Squeak would say. Can anybody tell me the name of the original hymn?

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Click to play

Subject: RE: Does anybody recognize this shape-note s
From: GUEST,melinda
Date: 19 Dec 06 - 10:25 AM

Does your hymnal give any other information, like the actual name of the tune? I have a "Southern Harmony" and could find the tune if I knew its name.
"Rejoice with all the saints" would be the name (or more likely the first line) of the HYMN - i.e. the words - but some hymnals will give you the 'real' name of the tune, which would make it easy to find in the Southern Harmony.
If not, I'll wait for the MIDI to appear and see if I can recognize it.

- melinda from Albany

Subject: RE: Does anybody recognize this shape-note s
From: ClaireBear
Date: 19 Dec 06 - 10:28 AM

I believe it's this tune: Prospect. (We sang it as an anthem in my churchchoir recently; that's why I know.)

Tell me if I'm right!

Subject: RE: Does anybody recognize this shape-note s
From: Joe Offer
Date: 19 Dec 06 - 03:14 PM

Here's Leeneia's MIDI. Sure sounds like Prospect to me. I haven't been able to find this one, Leeneia - can you post the lyrics, along with publisher and songwriter information?

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Click to play

Subject: RE: Does anybody recognize this shape-note s
From: Ebbie
Date: 19 Dec 06 - 03:32 PM

The tunes are similar but there is a significantly different treatment. Does shape note incorporate such differences?

Subject: RE: Does anybody recognize this shape-note s
From: Charlie Baum
Date: 19 Dec 06 - 03:35 PM

Prospect, from Southern Harmony (92b)

printed out with shapes:
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/walker/harmony/files/hymn/Prospect.html
as a midi:
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/walker/harmony/files/midi/Prospect.midi

Subject: RE: Does anybody recognize this shape-note s
From: ClaireBear
Date: 19 Dec 06 - 03:37 PM

Yes, that's Prospect. The link I provided above is directly to a reproduction of the Southern Harmony page that contains the hymn. It's from a 1966 reprint of the 1854 edition.

If you follow the "contents" link and then go to the redirect site, it appears you can download the whole book in PDF format from there -- if you don't mind downloading 17 MB!

Subject: RE: Does anybody recognize this shape-note s
From: ClaireBear
Date: 19 Dec 06 - 03:42 PM

Joe, the version we sang a few weeks ago was called "With All the Saints" -- not "Rejoice with All the Saints" -- if that helps. I can't find any trace of it online, and I don't get to keep the music after we sing, so I can't help track down the lyrics or composer/arranger -- sorry!

Subject: RE: Does anybody recognize this shape-note s
From: GUEST,melinda
Date: 19 Dec 06 - 04:51 PM

That's "Prospect" - page 92 in the Southern Harmony, attributed to "Graham." It's also in the "Sacred Harp" page 30, attributed to "Graham, 1835." The MIDI version has one note missing (maybe the editor of the "Breaking Bread" hymnal decided to omit it), but otherwise it's identical.
I hope this answers it!

melinda from Albany

Subject: RE: Does anybody recognize this shape-note s
From: leeneia
Date: 19 Dec 06 - 05:41 PM

Thanks everyone. The tune is indeed "Prospect." There is a slight difference in tonality because my song is in F/Dm, but basically it's the same.

I've found another Harmony - Kentucky Harmony.

Joe, you can find the tune with the modern, copyrighted words "Rejoice with all the Saints in the 2006 Breaking Bread book and possibly in the current book.

Now to download the tune with harmony...

Subject: RE: Does anybody recognize this shape-note s
From: masato sakurai
Date: 19 Dec 06 - 08:17 PM

Marion J. Hatchett (in A Companion to The New Harp of Columbia, University of Tennessee Press, 2003, p. 199) says:

Music: This tune [i.e. PROSPECT] apparently first appeared in print in the 1835 edition of William Walker's SouH [Southern Harmony], where it is attributed to M.C.H. Davis and printed in three parts with the first stanza of this text [Watts' "Why should we start and fear to die?"]. In later editions of SouH PROSPECT was attributed to Graham. Walker's version was reproduced in SacH [Sacred Harp]. ... Jackson listed PROSPECT among the "Eighty Most Popular" (27).

Subject: RE: Does anybody recognize this shape-note s
From: toadfrog
Date: 19 Dec 10 - 01:36 AM

refresh

Subject: RE: Does anybody recognize this shape-note s
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 19 Dec 10 - 08:20 AM

The link to the midi above is no longer valid.

Subject: RE: Does anybody recognize this shape-note s
From: Little Robyn
Date: 19 Dec 10 - 01:54 PM

ClaireBear's tune works OK.
Robyn

Subject: RE: Does anybody recognize this shape-note s
From: Artful Codger
Date: 19 Dec 10 - 07:56 PM

Here's the full text of Isaac Watt's poem:

657. (Hymn 31. B. 2. L. M.)
Christ's presence makes death easy.

1. Why should we start and fear to die ?
What timorous worms we mortals are !
Death is the gate of endless joy,
And yet we dread to enter there.

2 The pains, the groans, and dying strife,
Fright our approaching souls away ;
Still we shrink back again to life,
Fond of our prison and our clay.

3 O, if my Lord would come and meet,
My soul should stretch her wings in haste,
Fly fearless through death's iron gate,
Nor feel the terrors as she past.

4 Jesus can make a dying bed
Feel soft as downy pillows are,
While on his breast I lean my head,
And breathe my life out sweetly there.

Isaac Watts (1674-1748)
Source: The Psalms and Hymns of Dr. Watts, ed. by John Rippon, 1831.


The text "Rejoice with all the saints this day" appears to have been written by Harry Hagan, 2001.


To add to your Harmony list, I know of:
The Christian Harmony (Jeremy Ingalls, [Newbury VT], 1805; not shaped, but in that tradition)
Kentucky Harmony (Ananias Davisson, 1816, 1817 exp., 1819, 1821, 1826)
        Supplement, 1825
The Missouri Harmony (Carden, 1820; used by Abe Lincoln)
Northern Harmony (early 19th c.)
The Harmonia Sacra (Joseph Funk and sons, 1832)
        26th ed. 2008 [with MIDIs]
The Juvenile Harmony (1836)
The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion (William Walker, New Haven, 1835, 1847; 4-shape) See also:
        http://www.hymnary.org/hymn/SH/1
        http://www.ccel.org/ccel/walker/harmony/files/harmony.html
The Continental Harmony ("Father" R.C. Kemp, 1857)
Christian Harmony (Dr. William Walker, 1866; 7-shape)
Northern Harmony (Larry Gordon, 1979; 4th ed. 1998)
The Norumbega Harmony (Stephen A. Marini, 2003)
Northampton Harmony

There was much borrowing among these collections. You can find the music and texts for the songs in some of these collections at www.shapenote.net. For the lesser collections, they only list and provide songs not contained in (and reproduced from) the more significant collections.

Subject: Re: Prospect / Why Should We Start and Fear to Die
From: Artful Codger
Date: 19 Dec 10 - 08:10 PM

(Tune/text name in a message title, to help in searches)

Subject: RE: Does anybody recognize this shape-note s
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 19 Dec 10 - 11:23 PM

Thanks for the list of harmonies and the poem, Artful.

Isaac Watts was ill much of his adult life. Although I feel dubious about his sentiments, it remains true that sickness, death and fear were not mere abstractions for him.

==============
When I click on the 'Click to Plays' above, I find myself at a page called jonbanjo.org. This has happened before.

Does this happen to other people? I fun into that very page too often, and it's beginning to get on my nerves. How did jonbanjo usurp our links?

Subject: RE: Does anybody recognize this shape-note s
From: Artful Codger
Date: 20 Dec 10 - 01:00 AM

It's not a matter of usurping, really. If I recall, Mudcat MIDIs were for a period stored at a site using that domain name. But when a person or organization ceases renting a domain name, any other entity can grab it and post anything they want there--a great opportunity for phishers and site sponsors to exploit residual traffic from obsolete links.

Also, it often happens that a user or organization, renting space from a hosting service, will close down their site while the domain name is still being rented, and fail to deactivate or redirect the domain name mapping. In that case, the hosting service that originally sponsored the site will still receive any traffic directed to the domain name. It can reroute these page requests anywhere it likes--usually to pages advertising its own services. That appears to be the case here--you'll notice that the page reached explicitly says the domain name is up for sale.

Subject: RE: Does anybody recognize this shape-note s
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 20 Dec 10 - 10:14 AM

Thanks for explaining, Artful.