Introduction

[Greg Freed]

Hi all,

I currently sing in Berkeley and have been at it for about five years. 

I have never written music at all but just started my first Sacred Harp tune. It is, maybe not entirely surprisingly, difficult! Currently combing the archives for some general ideas about things like range and tessitura. 

At the moment, I'm using an ipad app called Touch Notation, which is at once miraculous and clumsy, and haven't yet figured out how I'll get the song into shapes if I ever finish it. The app unfortunately also doesn't accomodate text, so it's sometimes hard to keep track of what word goes with what note.

Thanks for adding me to the group.

Greg

[Wade Kotter]

Greetings, Greg. While combing the archives might give you a few hints, I suggest that you take a look at this primer by Robert Kelley:

http://www.robertkelleyphd.com/ShapeNoteMusic/SacredHarpHarmonyPresentation.pdf

It was very helpful to me. I also learned a lot by looking at tunes in the our tune books to get an idea of things like range, tesitura, etc.

In terms of software, you might want to check this out:

http://home.olemiss.edu/~mudws/resource/chap12.html

I personally use Finale, but it is very expensive and would be overkill unless, like me, you do a lot of notation of more "normal" music. The same would be true of Sibelius and Dorico. Some of the people on this list swear by Lilypond while others use Harmony Assistant. I haven't used it, but I've heard good things about Musescore. I'm not aware of any notation apps for iOS or Android that handle shape notes, but most of the major ones, such as Notation Pad and Notion allow you to export your music in MusicXML format that you can then upload into a desktop application such as Musescore.

Hope this helps. Good luck with your first tune. Hopefully we'll get a chance to look at it when you feel it's worth sharing.

Wade

Wade Kotter

South Ogden, UT

"Make a Joyful Noise Unto the Lord"

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