The Sacred Harp, like many other American tunebooks printed between 1801 and 1861, is printed in Little and Smith's four-shape notation, introduced in The Easy Instructor (1801). Here are samples of this and other music notations used in America and Britain, both before and after the introduction of the Little and Smith system. Note that four of these were devised at least in part to avoid the expense of music types by employing only characters and symbols found in a standard printer's font. This quality makes them potentially useful today for exchanging music in electronic form without the aid of complex and expensive music printing programs.
Warren Steel (mudws@olemiss.edu)[ Warren Steel | Music Department | UM Home ]