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WRITING MUSIC IN THE SACRED HARP TRADITION

The Denson version’s popularity is attributed to the casional gospel elements. The shape-note composers
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musical conservatism of the book’s editors, who reject- interviewed for this article all write in the “dispersed
ed modern developments in hymnody. The singers in harmony” style favored in the Denson revision. Ideally,
the Sacred Harp community were generally not inter- each new tune will adhere to the forms and composi-
ested in the new gospel style that rose in popularity in tional principles established before 1844 yet will also
the 1910s and 1920s. Gospel collections, which were carry unique appeal as a distinctive composition.
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issued annually in slim paperbacks by publishers such P. Dan Brittain’s composition Cobb is an example
as James D. Vaughan and A. J. Showalter, were char- of a plain tune, one of the principal genres of shape-
acterized by a prevalence of the major mode, swing- note composition (Figure 2). In a plain tune, the four
ing rhythms, call-and-response, and cheerful texts em- parts move in relative homorhythm. In a fuging tune
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phasizing salvation. While gospel songs appear in the (Figure 3 on the next page), an opening homophonic
“Cooper” revision of The Sacred Harp, which traces its passage is followed by a section in which the voices en-
lineage to a 1902 revision issued by W. M. Cooper, the ter one at a time. The fuging tune is emblematic of
Denson revision has retained the original mid-nine- the singing school tradition. Composers also tend to set
teenth-century composition style, admitting only oc- the same poets who were favored by nineteenth-centu-

CHORAL JOURNAL March/April 2025 Volume 65 Number 7 9