The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #22779   Message #251300
Posted By: GUEST,Confection
03-Jul-00 - 07:08 PM
Thread Name: Origins: Abide With Me
Subject: RE: Question: Abide With Me
I love Kings Lynne, it really has the kind of sound that the shape note hymns have. I'd love to know the source for it as well.

My nutshell definition: The 19th century shape note books were oblong tune books that used 4 different shapes as note heads to help with music reading. The first was published in Philly in 1799. They were extremely popular in the pre-Civil War South and singing from the Sacred Harp has continued to the present. The shape note books such as The Southern Harmony and The Sacred Harp have been recognized as containing many tunes originating as folk tunes. Apart from Amazing Grace the most well known tunes from the books are probably Wondrous Love & My Shepherd will Supply my need.

If you can get that link to Christian Classics Etheral Library to work (I couldn't), look for New Britain and you will see a facsimile of the first time the words for Amazing Grace were published with the tune most of us are familiar with. (Look at the 3rd line) Basically the same tune with different tune names and different words was published in several other shape note books before the 1834 Southern Harmony publication.

You can find lots more about shape note music, especially The Sacred Harp at the FASOLA home page. Follow the 2nd link on the page to see a sample.