You’re probably right that some people who participate in music that has high status in society (that you might call “serious musicians”) would sometimes look down on Sacred Harp and shapenote notation. Also agree that snobbery isn’t good.
I’ve sung a lot of Sacred Harp and people with a background in this high status music just blend in with everyone else really.
There aren't any accompanying instruments but singers do play other instruments in the rest of their life.
In Sacred Harp, before a song is sung, somebody sings out the notes of the opening chord of the song using a combination of ear/feel/memory/practice/experience. The same song can be keyed a bit higher or lower depending on things like: energy of the singers, time of day, whether the last song was quite high or low, how easy the highest or lowest written notes are for the singers in the room. It is a skill! But most keyers will usually pitch songs written in F major at roughly the same pitch and will pitch songs written in D major differently to F major.
I've sung a lot of Sacred Harp and Christian Harmony that use four-shape and seven-shape shapenote notation respectively. I've never sung roundnote notation so a bit hard for me to compare but I know lots of people who've done a lot of both.
A couple of things you gain with shapenote notation…
You don't have to learn key signatures to sing from shapenote notation. So it's less work to pick it up.
Sightsinging is easier with shapenote notation. After a while, you internalise the intervals between the shapes – you just know what a fa up to a sol feels and sounds like.
FaSoLaMix is a paid iOS app that lets you listen to a small selection of well-recorded songs where you can listen to the individual parts but sung by real people. Might be interesting to people on here.
From the FaSoLaMix site [1]:
> "FaSoLaMix" is an iOS app designed to teach Sacred Harp singing to newer singers. When someone wants to learn to sing, our instinct is usually to recommend that the inquirer go to a good singing and sit next to a strong singer. But not everyone lives near many all-day singings. Our intent is to give the listener the virtual experience of sitting next to a couple of strong singers in whichever section suits their voice. The app features high-quality recordings of many Sacred Harp songs where the mix of the four parts can be controlled manually. For example, a singer wanting to learn the treble line of a particular song could leave the treble track at full volume, mute the other three parts, and sing along with the solo treble part for practice. While the most obvious benefit will be to new singers, longtime singers will also find it useful and fun. For example, experienced singers may wish to mute one part and fill in that missing part with their own voice.
The Build and Distribute parts of the docs are the things I clicked on first. How can I get Tauri mobile apps in Apple and Google app stores? But they're both 'stubs' with no content yet.
Thanks! It’s kind of hard to understand what you mean without screenshots. Also there are so many variations that I’m not sure which rules you’re playing with. My dad is the only person who’s played it apart from me and so far if he finds something he thinks is a counting error it’s actually been counting right and it was a UX thing about the rule-writing
I've been playing around with making a version of tic-tac-toe that's interesting to grown-ups. Experimenting with rules a lot as you'll see. (I think 1357 is probably the best but not sure.)
I’m not sure when this was published. But Johnson has been a well-known politician in the UK for at least 10 years. I’m not sure he’s ever really been thought of as forward-thinking. Maybe, if you’re being charitable, he’s moved the UK centre-right a bit greener.
> How can I uninstall the Bitcoin and Lightning node?
> Currently, Umbrel installs a Bitcoin and Lightning node by default and it is not possible to remove it. Over the coming weeks, we’ll migrate the Bitcoin and Lightning node to the Umbrel App Store and your Umbrel would then start from a clean slate.
This is different to the Open Knowledge Format announced by Google in June 2026.