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Shapenote Music

Northern Harmony

Plain Tunes, Hymns and Anthems from the New England Singing School Tradition

1998, Edited by Larry Gordon and Anthony Barrand. Illustrations by Tom Bower.

OUT OF PRINT

4th edition. Hardcover, 280 pages.

Northern Harmony has always been a singer's collection. These tunes have been taught to singers of every age, ability, background and musical taste. They work. There is, perhaps, no other easily accessible choral music that is as much fun to sing. The music is stark, rhythmic, frequently modal, and very distinctive, set to the fierce rhymed poetry of Issac Watts and others. We recommend this volume to singers and conductors everywhere, first and foremost because it is a collection of powerful and exciting music.

In the last two decades, there has been a tremendous resurgence of shape-note singing all over the country. This shape-note revival has inspired an outpouring of splendid new songs by young singer/composers. Over a third of this edition is accounted for by contemporary compositions.The largest part of this volume presents a selection of plain tunes, fuging tunes, and anthems written by American composers during the years 1770-1810, most of them hitherto unavailable in modern editions.

If you would like to peruse an online index for the book (where you can look up songs by title, first line, etc), please visit Robert Stoddard's site.

Table of Contents for Northern Harmony (red titles, as well as those with sample mp3 links, are on the Songs from Northern Harmony CD, sold separately)
Introduction: the music, fuging tunes, singing schools & masters, the southern tradition, contemporary compositions, issac watts and religious poetry, suggested approach, shape notation, editing comments, singing style. The tunes: Acadia Advent Aeolian Harp All is Well Amanda Amazing Grace Amelia The Appletree As Pants the Hart Auburn Austria Balloon/Bondage Barnet Big Sky Birmingham Bridgewater Bristol Burlington Carol Chamberlain Hill Chelsea Chocksett Closing Year Craftsbury Daniels Desert Sorrow Despair Devotion Do Not Go Gentle East Alstead Edom Edson Election Hymn Emerald Stream Empyrean Evening Hymn Farewell Hymn Farquahar’s Retreat	Fisher Free Grace Garden The Garden Hymn Gibraltar Gordon Grafton Gratitude Greenfield Gregory Hallowell Hampton Harmony Harvest Hymn Honor to the Hills Immensity Interrogation Interstate Jerusalem Anthem John Colby’s Hymn Johnson Road Jubilant Judgement Lake Forest Lancaster Lawrence Leghorn Lexington Life’s Purpose The Lily Majesty Marlborough Meditation Millbrook Montague Montgomery Moreen Mortality My Life’s a Shade Mystic New Jerusalem Newbury Norumbega Ocean Orono Owlpen	Pacific Pardoning Grace Parting Pennsylvania Pleasant Valley Poland Poole Rainbow Reflection Resolution Retribution Roslin Castle Smear Song of Praise The Song of the Angels at the Nativity Spring St. Gaudens Sweet Brother Weed Sweet Was The Time Taunton Ten Thousand Charms Thirty-Fourth Psalm Thunderbird To The Angels Topsfield Tribunal Utopia Vermont Vermont Summer Virginia Wales Walkley Walpole Warren Wedding Hymn Wells When Shall We All Meet Again Windsor Winter Biographies and Notes Selected Bibliography Extra Texts for Hymns and Psalms Index