ILLINOIS SHAPE NOTE SINGING CONVENTION AT OLD STATE CAPITOL SEPTEMBER 17

SPRINGFIELD, IL - Music from the 1800s presented the same way it was on the Midwest prairie will resound through the Old State Capitol State Historic Site on Saturday, September 17 as the 21^st Illinois State Sacred Harp Convention is held in Springfield.

           

            Visitors are invited to listen to the music or sing along from 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. in the Old State Capitol Senate Chamber.

 

            The convention features shape note singing, a style of music used in the 19^th century where the average person learned to sing by a system of "shaped" notes.  Developed by itinerant American singing masters, this unique system was taught in a "singing school" format still used today.  Shape note singing added shapes to traditional musical notes representing fa, so, la and mi that do not stand for a particular note on a musical scale, but rather indicate the interval a singer's voice must travel.  Though some tunes have a solemn medieval quality, others are borrowed from lively folk melodies that can set toes to tapping.

 

            Shape note singing is not designed for performance, but for participation and enjoyment by men and women of all singing abilities.  Singers are seated in four sections facing one another, the first shape note pitch is given, and all then "sing the notes."  For more information on shape note singing, visit www.fasola.org.

 

            Abraham Lincoln biographer Carl Sandburg wrote about the "dark and moving poetry" of shape note singing that Lincoln and his contemporaries often heard that "reached out to take the hearts of the pioneers in the log cabin tavern, singing by candlelight there in New Salem."  In fact, an 1820 shape-note hymnal used in Lincoln's time, The Missouri Harmony, has been brought out in a new edition by The St. Louis Shape Note Singers, one of the groups participating in the September 17 convention.

 

            The Old State Capitol State Historic Site, administered by the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency (www.Illinois-History.gov), was the seat of Illinois government from 1839 to 1876.  It is open Tuesday through Saturday for free public tours.