This Week in Texas Music History

This Week in Texas Music History: Sacred Harp Singing

April 23, 2012 5:00 am by: Haley Howle

sacred harp

This Week in Texas Music History, we’ll learn about one of the oldest and most distinctive musical traditions in Texas.

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On April 28, 1900, the South Union Singing Convention first met at the Round Top schoolhouse in Caldwell County, Texas. Later renamed the Southwest Texas Sacred Harp Singing Convention, the group performs sacred harp, or shape note, singing. Popular throughout the American South, sacred harp singing derives from Benjamin White and Elisha King’s hymnal the Sacred Harp, published in 1844. Singers perform a cappella facing each other in a large square and use hymn books which contain specially shaped symbols to represent notes.

The Southwest Texas Sacred Singing Harp Convention continues to perform rgularly, helping to preserve this unique musical tradition.

Next time on This Week in Texas Music History, we meet a singer who was itching to make it in the music business.

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