Sacred Harp music or shape-note singing is as old as America itself. The term sacred harp refers to the human voice. Brought to this continent by the settlers of Jamestown, this style of singing is also known as “fasola.” In Legacy of the Sacred Harp, author Chloe Webb follows the history of this musical form back four hundred years, and in the process uncovers the harrowing legacy of her Dumas family line. The journey begins in contemporary Texas with an overlooked but historically rich family heirloom, a tattered 1869 edition of The Sacred Harp songbook. Traveling across the South and sifting through undiscovered family history, Webb sets out on a personal quest to reconnect with her ancestors who composed, sang, and lived by the words of Sacred Harp music. Her research irreversibly transforms her rose-colored view of her heritage and brings endearing characters to life as the reality of the effects of slavery on Southern plantation life, the thriving tobacco industry, and the Civil War are revisited through the lens of the Dumas family. Most notably, Webb’s original research unearths the person of Ralph Freeman, freed slave and pastor of a pre-Civil War white Southern church. Wringing history from boxes of keepsakes, lively interviews, dusty archival libraries, and church records, Webb keeps Sacred Harp lyrics ringing in readers’ ears, allowing the poetry to illuminate the lessons and trials of the past. The choral shape-note music of the Sacred Harp whispers to us of the past, of the religious persecution that brought this music to our shores, and how the voices of contemporary Sacred Harp singers still ring out the unchanged lyrics across the South, the music pulling the past into our present.

This authoritative reference work investigates the roots of the Sacred Harp, the central collection of the deeply influential and long-lived southern tradition of shape-note singing. Where other studies of the Sacred Harp have focused on the sociology of present-day singers and their activities, David Warren Steel and Richard H. Hulan concentrate on the regional culture that produced the Sacred Harp in the nineteenth century and delve deeply into history of its authors and composers. They trace the sources of every tune and text in the Sacred Harp, from the work of B. F. White, E. J. King, and their west Georgia contemporaries who helped compile the original collection in 1844 to the contributions by various composers to the 1936 to 1991 editions. The Makers of the Sacred Harp also includes analyses of the textual influences on the music--including metrical psalmody, English evangelical poets, American frontier preachers, camp meeting hymnody, and revival choruses--and essays placing the Sacred Harp as a product of the antebellum period with roots in religious revivalism. Drawing on census reports, local histories, family Bibles and other records, rich oral interviews with descendants, and Sacred Harp Publishing Company records, this volume reveals new details and insights about the history of this enduring American musical tradition.

A standard collection of traditional shape-note hymns.

The Sacred Harp choral singing tradition originated in the American South in the mid-nineteenth century, spread widely across the country, and continues to thrive today. Sacred Harp isn’t performed but participated in, ideally in large gatherings where, as the a cappella singers face each other around a hollow square, the massed voices take on a moving and almost physical power. I Belong to This Band, Hallelujah! is a vivid portrait of several Sacred Harp groups and an insightful exploration of how they manage to maintain a sense of community despite their members’ often profound differences. Laura Clawson’s research took her to Alabama and Georgia, to Chicago and Minneapolis, and to Hollywood for a Sacred Harp performance at the Academy Awards, a potent symbol of the conflicting forces at play in the twenty-first-century incarnation of this old genre. Clawson finds that in order for Sacred Harp singers to maintain the bond forged by their love of music, they must grapple with a host of difficult issues, including how to maintain the authenticity of their tradition and how to carefully negotiate the tensions created by their disparate cultural, religious, and political beliefs.

Darkness looms over the ancient world of Ahn Norvys, and the Great Harmony of Ardiel lies rent asunder. Prince Starigan, heir to the throne, has been abducted and power has been usurped by a traitorous cabal In the mountainous highlands of Arvon is the small but ancient community the Stoneholding, which has held out against the gathering forces of the evil Ferabek. Here by tradition, from earliest times, the High Bard has resided as guardian of the Sacred Fire, as well as the golden harp called the Talamadh. But in his search for the lost prince, Ferabek has attacked the Stoneholding with his Black Scorpion Dragoons and razed it to the ground. Wilum, the aged High Bard was forced to flee for his life with a ragged band of survivors, including Kalaquinn Wright, the wheelwrightss son. Kal, green in years and understanding, was torn from his pastoral life in a remote highland clanholding, and thrust out onto a broader stage in a journey of danger and escape, discovery and enlightenment. Now, as night covers Ahn Norvys, he must save what remains of the hallowed order of things and seek his destiny, a destiny that lies far beyond the Stoneholding. He must somehow find Prince Starigan and rekindle the Sacred Fire. At the publisher's request, this title is sold without DRM (Digital Rights Management).

In this classic work, Fr. Cajetan Mary da Bergamo explores the virtue of humility, which he considers the foundation of all virtues. Drawing from the teachings of saints and his own experience as a spiritual director, he provides practical guidance on how to cultivate humility in daily life. This book is a valuable resource for anyone seeking to grow in holiness and deepen their relationship with God.

With the ever increasing popularity of the French horn and the demand for French horn music, this book is published for the benefit of the American student and professional, to acquaint him with the most popular French horn solo parts of symphonic and standard literature.