About This Website

This site is no longer updated. Visit Jesse's Sacred Harp Composition web site for scores and recordings of music by Jesse in the style of the Sacred Harp.

Shape note music is a form of participatory unaccompanied group singing that has been continuously practiced in the United States for over 200 years. At a shape note singing, participants sit facing inward in a hollow square formation and take turns selecting songs from oblong tunebooks and leading them by keeping time while standing in the middle of the square. Often called Sacred Harp singing after the name of the book most commonly used by singers around the country, the music features raw harmony, driving rhythms, and full-throated, full-volume, enthusiastic singing.

I encountered Sacred Harp singing through Neely Bruce, a teacher of mine at Wesleyan University, and a major player in the revival of shape note singing in the Northeastern United States. With the encouragement of friends who grew up singing from the Sacred Harp and Northern Harmony shape note tunebooks, I began attending large singings, in addition to those I attended in Middletown, CT. After first attending the Western Massachusetts Sacred Harp Convention in 2003, I began composing shape note music, and produced a dozen tunes over the next two weeks.

Since then, I have continued to write new music in the style of the Sacred Harp. I have also begun to integrate Sacred Harp and shape note singing with my practice as a sound artist, producing sound installations featuring recorded Sacred Harp music, and organizing participatory singings of original music in the shape note style as a way of telling a story. This web site features a growing selection of this work, including downloadable scores and music.