Dissertation Project Audrey Harris von Tschirschnitz

Singing Shapes, Shaping Language: Origins and Dissemination of Sacred Harp Singing in the Southern
United States

Subject: Musicology

Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Irene Holzer

This dissertation investigates how Shape Note notation contributed to the development of a distinct musical language in early American hymnody. Focusing on The Sacred Harp (1844) and its surrounding traditions, the project situates Sacred Harp singing—often regarded as uniquely American—within a broader transatlantic framework. Although the tradition emerged in the nineteenth-century American South, its musical and notational roots extend into earlier European hymn practices, a relationship that has not yet been systematically examined. Shape Note notation, characterized by differently shaped noteheads linked to solmization syllables, has frequently been interpreted as a pedagogical tool. This study proposes instead that Shape Notes represent a significant linguistic shift in musical practice. By transforming how singers read and internalized music, the notation fostered new harmonic and stylistic idioms, including fuging tunes and parallel part writing, which distinguish American Shape Note hymnody from its European antecedents. The project addresses a major gap in current scholarship: the lack of research connecting European hymnals of the seventeenth century, early American psalters, and the Shape Note tunebooks that culminated
in The Sacred Harp. Through comparative analysis of notation, repertoire, and solmization systems, the study traces how European traditions were transmitted, adapted, and reshaped in North America. Methodologically, the dissertation combines archival research, musical analysis, and digital humanities approaches. It examines approximately 38 Shape Note tunebooks alongside European and early American sources to map networks of cultural and musical transmission. A further component is the development of an online archive of manuscripts and tunebooks, enabling scholars to compare changes in repertory, notation, and physical documentation across regions and centuries. By reconstructing the repertoire, notation, and stylistic evolution of this formative period, the project demonstrates how the Shape Note tradition transformed hymnody into a distinctly American musical language. In doing so, it offers new perspectives on notational history, transatlantic hymn traditions, and the cultural dynamics of musical literacy.