Most choral music does not use them, and instrumentalists rely wholly on absolute pitch. If you’re teaching in a music curriculum, vocal or instrumental, I’d avoid shape notes altogether.So when are shaped notes appropriate to use and teach? He has limited knowledge of modern music theory, but he can sight-read almost any song with Aiken notation. On the other hand, another member of the congregation I attend swears by it. I find it a distraction from what I already know about music. Some northern hymnal publishers have abandoned shaped notes in favor of traditional European notation, but Aiken notation is still popular among southern hymnals. Lowell Mason - a name that is probably familiar to many Christian musicians - would later seek to eliminate shaped notes from Christian hymnals, but they were too firmly entrenched. We Shall Overcome – Aiken notation with clefs/key signature (Remember that a capella singing was more prevalent in congregations of the 1800s than today.) Today, some hymnals use a hybrid system where absolute and relative notation is combined. Absolute pitch was considered unnecessary when singers could easily see the relative relationship between notes through Aiken’s system. Aiken’s books would contain simple time signatures and no clefs or key signatures.
In their original form, shaped notes were supposed to be self-sufficient. Four-shape notation can be traced a few years farther back but never gained the popularity of seven-shape notation. His 1846 book The Christian Minstrel brought shaped notes to spiritual music, and, while gaining little traction overseas, the seven-shape system became very popular in the United States - particularly in southern states.
In fact, many music manuals and notation software applications refer to these notes as Aiken Note Shapes. The seven shape system of notation is not very old and is usually credited to Jesse Aiken. Seven shapes for seven basic pitches A Little History These note shapes are based on the seven basic scale degrees, and each shape represents one of those pitches. Ironically enough, a trained musician may find this system disconcerting because they may have never encountered this method of notation in any other setting. Instead of customary note heads, every pitch has a unique shape.
If you’ve done any congregational singing among more traditional American churches, chances are you’ve run across something like this at some point:
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