Creator

Subject

Geographic Term

Music Tracks

Description

Lee, from Hoboken, Ga., conducts a singing school, teaching participants shape note singing and songs from The Sacred Harp. He explains the history of shape note singing and The Sacred Harp in the Okefenokee region, indicating that singers learned to sing through aural transmission, passed down from generation to generation. Lee describes the four shapes (fa, sol, la, mi) and how they correspond to the major scale, followed by a demonstration. After clarifying how singers keep time and stay on beat, he explains how beats can be grouped together in common, compound, or triple time. As a synthesis of the lesson, Lee leads the class in tunes from The Sacred Harp, Revised Cooper Edition. There is digital distortion due to tape corruption on "Florida."