Marini (2003) traces the earliest roots of Sacred Harp to the "country parish music" of early 18th century England. This form of rural church music evolved a number of the distinctive traits that were passed on from tradition to tradition, until they ultimately became part of Sacred Harp singing. These traits included the assignment of the melody to the tenors, harmonic structure emphasizing fourths and fifths, and the distinction between the ordinary four-part hymn ("plain tune"), the anthem, and the fuguing tune. Several composers of this school, including
Joseph Stephenson and
Aaron Williams, are represented in the 1991 Edition of
The Sacred Harp. For further information on the English roots of Sacred Harp music, see
West gallery music. Around the mid-18th century, the forms and styles of English country parish music were introduced to America, notably in a new tunebook called
Urania, published 1764 by the singing master
James Lyon. This stimulus soon led to the development of a robust native school of composition, signaled by the 1770 publication of
William Billings's
The New England Psalm Singer, and then by a great number of new compositions by Billings and those who followed in his path. The work of these composers, sometimes called the "
First New England School", forms a major part of the Sacred Harp to this day. Billings and his followers worked as singing masters, who led
singing schools. The purpose of these schools was to train young people in the correct singing of sacred music. This pedagogical movement flourished, and led ultimately to the invention of
shape notes, which originated as a way to make the teaching of singing easier. The first shape note tunebook appeared in 1801:
The Easy Instructor by William Smith and William Little. At first, Smith and Little's shapes competed with a rival system, created by
Andrew Law (1749–1821) in his
The Musical Primer of 1803. Although this book came out two years later than Smith and Little's book, Law claimed earlier invention of shape notes. In his system, a square indicated
fa, a circle
sol, a triangle
la and a diamond,
mi. Law used the shaped notes without a musical staff. The Smith and Little shapes ultimately prevailed. Shape notes became very popular, and during the first part of the nineteenth century, a
whole series of shape note tunebooks appeared, many of which were widely distributed. As the population spread west and south, the tradition of shape note singing expanded geographically. Composition flourished, with the new music often drawing on the tradition of
folk song for tunes and inspiration. Probably the most successful shape note book prior to
The Sacred Harp was
William Walker's
Southern Harmony, published in 1835 and still in use today. Even as they flourished and spread, shape notes and the kind of participatory music which they served came under attack. The critics were from the urban-based "better music" movement, spearheaded by
Lowell Mason, which advocated a more "scientific" style of sacred music, more closely based on the
harmonic styles of contemporaneous European music. The new style gradually prevailed. Shape notes and their music disappeared from the cities prior to the Civil War, and from the rural areas of the Northeast and Midwest in the following decades. However, they retained a haven in the rural South, which remained a fertile territory for the creation of new shapenote publications.
The arrival of The Sacred Harp Sacred Harp singing came into being with the 1844 publication of
Benjamin Franklin White and
Elisha J. King's
The Sacred Harp. The editors of
The Sacred Harp in the 19th century were
Georgians; the book itself was typeset and printed in
Philadelphia. It was this book, now distributed in several different versions, that came to be the shape-note tradition with the largest number of participants. B. F. White (1800–1879) was originally from
Union County, South Carolina, but since 1842 had been living in
Harris County, Georgia. He prepared
The Sacred Harp in collaboration with a younger man, E. J. King, (–44), who was from
Talbot County, Georgia. Together they compiled, transcribed, and composed tunes, and published a book of over 250 songs. King died soon after the book was published, and White was left to guide its growth. He was responsible for organizing
singing schools and conventions at which
The Sacred Harp was used as the songbook. During his lifetime, the book became popular and would go through three revisions (1850, 1859, and 1869), all produced by committees consisting of White and several colleagues working under the auspices of the
Southern Musical Convention. The first two new editions simply added appendices of new songs to the back of the book. The 1869 revision was more extensive, removing some of the less popular songs and adding new ones in their places. From the original 262 pages, the book was expanded by 1869 to 477. This edition was reprinted and continued in use for several decades.
Origin of the modern editions Around the turn of the 20th century, Sacred Harp singing entered a period of conflict over the issue of traditionalism. The conflict ultimately split the community. B. F. White had died in 1879 before completing a fourth revision of his book; thus the version that Sacred Harp participants were singing from was by the turn of the century over three decades old. During this time, the musical tastes of Sacred Harp's traditional adherents, the inhabitants of the rural South, had changed in important ways. Notably,
gospel music – syncopated and chromatic, often with piano accompaniment – had become popular, along with a number of church hymns of the "mainstream" variety, such as "Rock of Ages". Seven-shape notation systems had appeared and won adherents away from the older four-shape system (see
shape note for details). As time passed, Sacred Harp singers doubtless became aware that what they were singing had become quite distinct from contemporary tastes. The natural path to take—and the one ultimately taken—would be to assert the archaic character of Sacred Harp as an outright virtue. In this view, Sacred Harp should be treasured as a time-tested musical tradition, standing above current trends of fashion. The difficulty with adopting traditionalism as a guiding doctrine was that different singers had different opinions about just what form the stable, traditionalized version of Sacred Harp would take. The first move was made by
W. M. Cooper, of
Dothan, Alabama, a leading Sacred Harp teacher in his own region, but not part of the inner circle of B. F. White's old colleagues and descendants. In 1902 Cooper prepared a revision of
The Sacred Harp that, while retaining most of the old songs, also added new tunes that reflected more contemporary music styles. Cooper made other changes, too: • He retitled many old songs. These songs were formerly named by their tune, using arbitrarily chosen place names ("New Britain", "Northfield", "Charlestown"). The new names were based on the text; thus "New Britain" became "Amazing Grace", "Northfield" became "How Long, Dear Savior", and so on. The old system was intended in colonial times to permit mixing and matching of tunes and texts, but was unnecessary in a system where the pairing of tune and text was fixed. • He transposed some songs into new keys. This is thought to have brought the notation closer to actual performing practice. • He wrote new alto parts for the many songs that originally just had three vocal lines. The Cooper revision was a success, being widely adopted in many areas of the South, such as Florida, southern Alabama, and Texas, where it has continued as the predominant Sacred Harp book to this day. The "Cooper book", as it is now often called, was revised by Cooper himself in 1907 and 1909. His son-in-law published the book in 1927, including an appendix compiled by revision committee. The Sacred Harp Book Company was formed in 1949, and subsequent revision has been supervised by editorial committees under its instruction. New editions were issued in 1950, 1960, 1992, 2000, 2006 and 2012. In the original core geographic area of Sacred Harp singing, northern Alabama and Georgia, the singers did not in general take to the Cooper book, as they felt it deviated too far from the original tradition. Obtaining a new book for these singers was made more difficult by the fact that B. F. White's son
James L. White, who would have been the natural choice to prepare a new edition, was a non-traditionalist. His "fifth edition" (1909) won little support among singers, while his "fourth edition with supplement" (1911) enjoyed some success in a few areas. Ultimately, a committee headed by
Joseph Stephen James produced an edition entitled
Original Sacred Harp (1911) that largely satisfied the wishes of this community of singers. The James edition was further revised in 1936 by a committee under the leadership of the brothers
Seaborn and
Thomas Denson, both influential
singing school teachers. Both died shortly before the project was complete, and the remaining work was overseen by Paine Denson, son of Thomas. This book was entitled
Original Sacred Harp, Denson Revision, and was itself revised 1960, 1967, and 1971 by committees led by
A. M. Cagle and
Hugh McGraw. Additional, more thorough revisions and remodelings of this book, overseen by
McGraw and
David Ivey, respectively, were published in 1991 and 2025. Today, the book is known as the "2025 Edition", though some singers still call it the "Denson book". Even the highly traditionalist James and Denson books followed Cooper in adding alto parts to most of the old three-part songs (these alto parts led to an unsuccessful lawsuit by Cooper). Some people (see for instance the reference by Buell Cobb given below) believe that the new alto parts imposed an esthetic cost by filling in the former stark open harmonies of the three-part songs. Wallace McKenzie argues to the contrary, basing his view on a systematic study of representative songs. In any event, there is little support today for abandoning the added alto parts, since most singers give a high priority to giving every side of the square its own part to sing. It was thus that the traditionalism debate split the Sacred Harp community, and there seems little prospect that it will ever reunite under a single book. However, there have been no further splits. Both the Denson and the Cooper groups adopted traditionalist views for the particular form of Sacred Harp they favored, and these forms have now been stable for about a century. The strength of traditionalism can be seen in the front matter of the two hymnbooks. The Denson book is forthrightly Biblical in its defense of tradition: DEDICATED TO All lovers of Sacred Harp Music, and to the memory of the illustrious and venerable patriarchs who established the Traditional Style of Sacred Harp singing and admonished their followers to "seek the old paths and walk therein". The Cooper book also shows a warm appreciation of tradition: May God bless everyone as we endeavor to promote and enjoy Sacred Harp music and to continue the rich tradition of those who have gone before us. To say that both communities are traditionalist does not mean they discourage the creation of new songs. To the contrary, it is part of the tradition that musically creative Sacred Harp singers should become composers themselves and add to the canon. The new compositions are prepared in traditional styles, and could be considered a kind of tribute to the older material. New songs have been incorporated into editions of
The Sacred Harp throughout the 20th century and into the 21st.
Other Sacred Harp books Two other books are currently used by Sacred Harp singers. A few singers in north Georgia employ the "White book", an expanded version of the 1869 B. F. White edition edited by
J. L. White.
African-American Sacred Harp singers, although primarily users of the Cooper book, also make use of a supplementary volume,
The Colored Sacred Harp, produced by
Judge Jackson (1883–1958) in 1934 and later revised in two subsequent editions. In his book
Judge Jackson and The Colored Sacred Harp, Joe Dan Boyd identified four regions of Sacred Harp singing among African-Americans: eastern Texas (Cooper book), northern Mississippi (Denson book), south Alabama and Florida (Cooper book), and New Jersey (Cooper book). The
Colored Sacred Harp is limited to the New Jersey and south Alabama–Florida groups. Sacred Harp was "exported" from south Alabama to New Jersey. It appears to have died out among the African-Americans in eastern Texas.
The spread of Sacred Harp singing in modern times Beginning in the mid-20th century, Sacred Harp singing grew in popularity with participants who did not grow up in the tradition, including singers outside Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Texas. New singers typically strive to follow the historically Southern customs at their singings; traditional singers have responded to this need by providing help in orienting the newcomers. For instance, the Rudiments section of the 1991 Denson edition includes information on how to hold a singing; this information would be superfluous in a traditional context, but is important for a group starting up on its own. In recent years an annual summer camp has been established, at which newcomers can learn to sing Sacred Harp.
The U.S. beyond the South There are now strong Sacred Harp singing communities in most major urban areas of the United States, and in many rural areas, as well. One of the first groups of singers formed outside the traditional Southern home region of Sacred Harp singing was in the Chicago area. The first Illinois convention was held in 1985, with enthusiastic and strongly proactive support by prominent Southern traditional singers. In March 2008, the 2008 Western Massachusetts Sacred Harp Convention attracted over 300 singers from 25 states and a number of foreign countries. Other prominent singing conventions outside the South include, for example, the Keystone Convention in Pennsylvania, the Missouri Convention, and the Minnesota State Convention, which began in 1990.
Sacred Harp Singing beyond the US In more recent times Sacred Harp singing has spread beyond the borders of the United States.
United Kingdom The United Kingdom has had an active Sacred Harp community since the 1990s. The first UK Sacred Harp convention took place in 1996. There are active regular local singings and all-day singings in many places around the UK.
Canada Canada has a decades-long tradition of Sacred Harp singing, particularly in
Southern Ontario and the
Eastern Townships of
Quebec. Singings have been organized weekly in
Montreal, Quebec since 2011, as well as a monthly afternoon sing, and the first Montreal all-day sing took place in the spring of 2016. Sacred Harp singing has happened on a monthly basis for years in
Toronto.
Australia Australia has had Sacred Harp singing since 2001, and singings are held regularly in Melbourne, Sydney, Canberra and Blackwood. The first Australian All Day Singing was held in Sydney in 2012.
Ireland In January 2009, Sacred Harp singing was introduced to
Ireland, by Juniper Hill of
University College Cork, spreading quickly from a class module into the wider community. In March 2011 U.C.C. hosted the first annual Ireland Sacred Harp Convention, and the Cork community held their first All-Day Singing on 22 October 2011. There are now also growing Sacred Harp communities in Belfast and Dublin.
Continental Europe In the most recent development, Sacred Harp singing has expanded beyond the limits of English-speaking countries to mainland Europe. In 2008 a singing community was established in Poland (which hosted the first Camp Fasola Europe in September 2012). In Germany there are regular weekly or monthly singings in Bremen, Hamburg, Berlin, Cologne and Munich, most of them with their own annual All-Day singings. Elsewhere in Germany, singers meet irregularly in Frankfurt, Gießen and Nürnberg. Recently groups have started up in Amsterdam, Paris and Clermont-Ferrand, Oslo, Norway, and Uppsala, Sweden. Both the Swedish and Norwegian groups have arranged all-day singings; the 10th Oslo All-Day Singing will be June 2026, 5.- 7. Regular singings also take place in Israel, and in April 2016, an all-day singing was held in Paris, France.
Use in popular works Sacred Harp singing appears as
diegetic music in the films
Cold Mountain (2004) and
Lawless (2012), and as background music in
The Ladykillers (2004). The 2010 song "
Tell Me Why" by
M.I.A. includes a sample of "The Last Words of Copernicus" by
Sarah Lancaster, recorded at the 1959 United Sacred Harp Convention in
Fyffe, Alabama, by
Alan Lomax. The album version of
Bruce Springsteen's "
Death to My Hometown" (2012) also samples this recording. Electronic musician
Holly Herndon's 2019 track "Frontier" includes a performance of Herndon's music by a singing class in Berlin, Germany. The 2014 animated miniseries
Over the Garden Wall features an original shape-note style composition in the second episode, "Hard Times at the Huskin' Bee".
Laurie Anderson's 2024 multimedia show
United States V included a performance of "David's Lamentation" (Sacred Harp 268) by a rotating group of UK Sacred Harp singers. ==Origins of the music==