Page "Amazing Grace" Paragraph 6

Simultaneously, an unrelated movement of communal singing was established throughout the South and Western states.

A format of teaching music to illiterate people appeared in 1800.

It used four sounds to symbolize the basic scale: fa-sol-la-fa-sol-la-mi-fa.

Each sound was accompanied by a specifically shaped note and thus became known as shape note singing.

The method was simple to learn and teach, so schools were established throughout the South and West.

Communities would come together for an entire day of singing in a large building where they sat in four distinct areas surrounding an open space, one member directing the group as a whole.

Most of the music was religious, but the purpose of communal singing was not primarily spiritual.

Communities either could not afford music accompaniment or rejected it out of a Calvinistic sense of simplicity, so the songs were sung a cappella.