Cheese Notes

Below, you’ll find a curated selection of blog posts that explore the history of shape note and Sacred Harp singing. It is my hope these articles provide valuable insights, or an interesting bit of incredibly niche history, for anyone interested in the rich heritage and traditions of this distinctive musical practice.

The term “cheese notes” refers to the historical and biographical anecdotes added to the Sacred Harp by J.S. James, starting with his “Original Sacred Harp” published in 1911. Among these anecdotes is a particularly intriguing story about composer Rev. John Leland and a giant wheel of cheese. I’ll leave it to the curious reader to discover the full details on their own.

• Timeline of “Sacred Harp” Editions
  A Timeline of Sacred Harp Editions, Illustrated and with Minimal Bibliographic Detail.by Kevin Isaac “Of making many books there is no end, and much study wearies the body.” —Ecclesiastes 12:12 INTRODUCTION NOTICE:THIS IS AN IN-PROGRESS PROJECT, PUBLISHED “EARLY” FOR COLLABORATIVE PURPOSES. EXPECT CHANGES TO OCCUR AS LONG AS THIS NOTICE…
• March Lesson: The Easy Instructor
  At our March singing we reintroduced “lessons”. Some will be about the history of shape note singing, some will be based on rudiments. The goal is to present enjoyable information that can make the group enjoy singing and feel they have a better understanding of the traditions and technics. When…
• LPs issued by the Sacred Harp Publishing Co.
  We have taken the text from “Chapter 7: Older Recordings (Pre-1977) of Traditional Singers Reissued on CDs and Internet” found on Steven L. Sabol’s terrific internet resource, and I have inserted the appropriate YouTube videos of the albums he describes. We have appended the track listing provided by Jeramiah Ledbetter,…
• A timeline of the Baltimore-Washington All Day
  The broad outline of shape-note singing (and four shape-note in particular) is that it emerged from New England and took hold in the deep south and some western locales where it survived largely among isolated communities. It was in the 1930s that some academics discovered this American musical form had…
• Deep Dive | Sacred Harp – 47b Idumea
  “Deep Dive” will be a series of posts where we learn specific songs from our songbooks. Not just how to sing them, but some of the history of the songs and other interesting notes. We will pull learning information from a number of sources online and offline. This is the…