On Sun, 7 Jan 2007 [log in to unmask] wrote:

> Does anybody know what "shaped notes"were/are?

They still are, actually -- I had a colleague once whose only real
diversion in life was the shape notes and the singing, and the group with
which he was associated was part of a very active shape note music scene,
with conferences and regional get-togethers.

It is a system of musical notation where the shape of the note matches the
"name" of the note (i.e. do, re, me, etc.).  The idea was that vocal music
could be learned more easily if people didn't have to learn how to read
music as such.

For more information, you may wish to consult Wikipedia, which goes into
more detail and is accurate, as far as I can tell.

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shape_note

Mario Rups
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