Home

Local Announcements

Out-of-Town Conventions

Missouri Harmony Project

Links to Neighbors

Singing Since 1983

We in St. Louis have been singing shape note music from the Denson Sacred Harp since 1983. Like most of the Midwestern shape note singing groups, we started small and tentatively, struggling to make sense of the notation and believing that we needed to rehearse.

We are now somewhat larger (usually we have from 15 to 24 singers on a Monday evening) and we are no longer tentative.

Some of our local singers attended the watershed singing at Paxton, Illinois in 1985, where the Midwestern spontaneous generation fatefully encountered the Southern Sacred Harp community, and through the Southerners' kindness and generosity learned that the soul of this music is much greater than we dreamed.

Since Paxton, we have endeavored to follow the Southern singing traditions. We host an annual convention in March (next year will be our 23rd!); many of us travel frequently to conventions in the South and in the Midwest. We consider ourselves to be part of the traditional community of singers--and we sing loud!

Additionally, we have adopted as our own the Missouri Harmony (a shape note tunebook with a long history and a name we can relate to), facilitating its facsimile reprinting and resetting a group of songs for accuracy and legibility. We have joined with the Missouri Historical Society in the publication of a new revision of the Missouri Harmony which contains songs not included in the Sacred Harp plus new compositions. Click on Missouri Harmony Project for more information.

If you are a shape note singer or would like to become one, we welcome you to join us. There are no auditions--just be ready to learn by immersion. It's also good if you can cook!