MUSI 2040 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: William Billings, Sacred Harp, Psalms
23 Aug 2016
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Day 5: religion: new england psalmody and hymnody. For discussion: start with form, only do it for song assigned but listen to all three songs. Old hundred : syllabic, mostly conjunct, easy to learn and ts many different sets of words. Psalm and hymn are the same except psalm is speci cally from the book of. The old way: result of falling musical literacy and literacy in general, printing was very expensive, result: lining out- congregation sings tune back to deacon, only slower than the deacon sings it. Very free form and not necessarily sung in tune or perfect meter by everyone. Singing the regular way: singing by the notes, 1720ish religious objections to the old way (too brash sounding, and thought congregation needed more control than the clergy) Monday, august 22, 2016: singing schools and itinerant teachers, william billings: was a tanner and taught himself composition on the side, became itinerant singing teacher.
