About The Minutes Process Projects Team Minutes Data, 1995–Present About Sacred Harp Minutes is curating an expanding collection of humanities research data from the proceedings of Sacred Harp singings in a queryable database, making it possible for scholars and singers to ask a range of new questions about how participants in this music tradition historically engage its repertoire across time and space. The database is a collaboration between Emory University , the University of West Georgia , the Sacred H
Access Sacred Harp minutes data from 1995–present .
Sacred Harp is a style of social hymn-singing in four-part a cappella harmony. A form of shape-note singing, the style adopts a music notation system that aids in sight-singing in which notes of different pitches feature different shapes corresponding with the syllables “fa,” “sol,” “la,” and “mi.” Singers use a tunebook titled The Sacred Harp at “singing conventions” where participants take turns leading the group in a song or two of their choice. Since the book’s first publication in 1844, secretaries hav