Christian Harmony Song Book, 1901 Edition

“I am a descendant of the Smathers family that settled from Germany into Dutch Cove. The Smathers and the Rhodarmers were among the first to settle in Dutch Cove. It's not ‘Dutch’ as in people from Holland; it was called ‘Deutch Cove’ but it eventually got translated into ‘Dutch Cove.’

“I brought my father's Christian Harmony Shaped Note Song Book. He learned to sing shaped notes when he was a young child and that's what they sang at Morning Star United Methodist Church where he grew up. He spent his life preserving the tradition of singing shaped notes and passed that down to his daughters. I try to continue that tradition at Morning Star United Methodist Church on the second Sunday of every September.

“This book was published by William Walker and the music notes are written in shapes rather than the traditional round notes that you would see in a book. The shapes are a method to teach people who don't know how to read music a very quick way of learning the intervals between the different notes, rather than having to learn what the space is, what the line is—jumping from the first line up to the fourth space, what that sound interval would be, etc. The shapes always have the same sound, always have the same relation to each other. Once you learn what the shapes are and the sound that's associated with them, then you can learn to sight-read Christian harmony music. The book that I brought is a 1901 copy and it was written by William Walker of Spartanburg, South Carolina.”

Interview edited for clarity

Submitted by June Jolley on July 18, 2022