Jazz | Definition, History, Musicians, & Facts | Britannica
Jazz grew from the African American slaves who were prevented from maintaining their native musical traditions and felt the need to substitute ...
shape-note hymn tunes
The elements that make jazz distinctive derive primarily from West African musical sources as taken to the North American continent by slaves, who partially preserved them against all odds in the plantation culture of the American South. These elements are not precisely identifiable because they were not documented—at least not until the mid- to late 19th century, and then only sparsely. Furthermore, Black slaves came from diverse West African tribal cultures with distinct musical traditions. Thus, a great variety of Black musical sensibilities were assembled on American soil. These in turn rather quickly encountered European musical elements—for example, simple dance and entertainment musics and <anchor>shape-note hymn tunes</anchor>, such as were prevalent in early 19th-century North America.
Shape-note hymnal | Sacred Harp, Americana, Folk Music | Britannica
Shape-note hymnal \| Sacred Harp, Americana, Folk Music \| Britannica

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# shape-note hymnal

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Also known as: buckwheat-note hymnal, patent-note hymnal


Written and fact-checked by


[The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica\
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[Article History](https://www.britannica.com/art/shape-note-hymnal/additional-info#history)


Table of Contents


Also called: patent-note hymnal, or buckwheat-note hymnal_(Show more)_

Related Topics: [musical notation](/art/musical-notation)[shape note](/art/shape-note)[hymnbook](/topic/hymnbook)_(Show more)_

[See all related content →](/facts/shape-note-hymnal)

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**shape-note hymnal**, American hymnal incorporating many folk hymns and [utilizing](https://www.britannica.com/dictionary/utilizing) a special [musical notation](https://www.britannica.com/art/musical-notation). The [seven-note scale](https://www.britannica.com/art/heptatonic-scale) was sung not to the syllables do–re–mi–fa–sol–la–ti but to a four-syllable system carried with them by early English colonists: fa–sol–la–fa–sol–la–mi. Differently shaped note heads were used for each of the four syllables: mi (![Symbol for mi.](https://cdn.britannica.com/80/14280-004-257234D7/Symbol.jpg)), la, or law (![Symbol for la.](https://cdn.britannica.com/79/14279-004-08F4A6FF/Symbol-la.jpg)), fa, or faw (![Symbol for fa.](https://cdn.britannica.com/78/14278-004-582E1547/Symbol-fa.jpg)), and sol (![Symbol for sol.](https://cdn.britannica.com/77/14277-004-28F78A01/Symbol-sol.jpg)). The notation of the [music](https://www.britannica.com/art/music) was normal except that the note heads of the shape-note system replaced the regular ones. The singer read the music by following the shapes of the note heads, although someone unfamiliar with the system could read the notes according to their placement on the staff.

The hymns normally appear in three-part or, less often, four-part harmonizations. Traditional rules of European harmony are consistently [disregarded](https://www.britannica.com/dictionary/disregarded), giving rise to a spare, vigorous style in which the movement of the individual melodic lines is of primary importance. The melody is normally in the tenor part. Melodies are drawn from folk hymns, religious ballads, revival spirituals ( _see_ [spiritual](https://www.britannica.com/art/spiritual)), hymns of 18th- and early 19th-century Americans, and, to a lesser extent, popular hymns and anthems of European composers.

[![Young girl wearing a demin jacket playing the trumpet (child, musical instruments, Asian ethnicity)](https://cdn.britannica.com/30/254330-131-1B200240/young-girl-playing-trumpet.jpg)\
\
Britannica Quiz\
\
Sound Check: Musical Vocabulary Quiz](/quiz/sound-check-musical-vocabulary-quiz)

The shape-note tradition waned in [New England](https://www.britannica.com/place/New-England) around 1815, pressured by urban trends toward Europeanized music, but it thrived in the Midwest and South. Important hymnals from this period were John Wyeth’s _Repository of Sacred Music, Part Second_ (1813) and Ananias Davisson’s _Kentucky Harmony_ (1816).

Only in the 1880s did the shape-note system decline. Still in use among shape-note singers, who often meet in annual singing [conventions](https://www.britannica.com/dictionary/conventions), are [William Walker’s](https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Walker) _Southern Harmony_ (1835; 7th ed. 1854) and [Benjamin Franklin](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Benjamin-Franklin) White and E.J. King’s _Sacred Harp_ (1844; rev. ed., _The Sacred Harp,_ 1991), both of which use four shapes. Walker’s _Christian Harmony_ (1866) used his own seven-shape system.