In the sixteenth century, the early Presbyterians continued this
usage, as is evidenced by Wedderburn's hymnal published in Edinburgh
in 1560, quaintly entitled: _Ane Compendius Booke of Godly and
Spirituall Songs, Collected out of Sundrie Parts of the Scriptures,
with Sundrie of Other Ballates Changed out of Prophaine Songs, for
Avoiding of Sin and Harlotrey_. Among these latter was a parody of
'John, Come Kiss Me,' the wide and enduring popularity of which is
attested by its inclusion in Queen Elizabeth's _Virginal Book_,
Playford's _Introduction, Apollo's Banquet for the Treble Violin_,
Walsh's _Division Violin_, Playford's _Division Violin_ and _Pills to
Purge Melancholy_. There are also references to it in Thomas Heywood's
_A Woman Killed with Kindness_, _Westminster Drollery_, Burton's
_Anatomy of Melancholy_, _The Scourge of Folly_, Braithwaite's
_Shepherd's Tales_, _Tom Tiler and his Wife_, and Henry Bold's _Songs
and Poems_. Allan Cunningham quotes the parody in _The Songs of
Scotland, Ancient and Modern_, as follows:
John, come kiss me now,
John, come kiss me now,
John, come kiss me by and by,
And make nae mair ado.
The Lord thy God I am,
That John does thee call:
John represents man
By grace celestial.
For John Goddis grace it is,
Who list till expone the same:
O John, thou did amiss
When that thou lost this name.
My prophets call, my preachers cry
John, come kiss me now
John, come kiss me by and by
And make nae mair ado.
A similar book appeared in 1642, called: _Psalms, or Songs of Zion,
turned into the language and set to the tunes of a strange land, by
William Slatyer, intended for Christmas Carols and fitted to divers of
the most noted and common but solemn tunes, everywhere in this land
familiarly used and known_. That the Puritans of that century did not
invariably confine themselves to "solemn tunes" is indicated by
Shakespeare when the Clown in _The Winter's Tale_, in praising the
vocal prowess of the shearers, assembled for the sheep-shearing feast,
says: "Three-man song-men, all, and very good ones...; but one Puritan
amongst them, and he sings Psalms to hornepipes." In the _New
Variorium Shakespeare_, H. H. Furness, in commenting on the passage,
says: "He sings Psalms to the lively tunes to which horn-pipes were
danced,--a practice which, we know was extremely popular in France,
and from allusions like the present we can infer that it was not
unknown in England."
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the Puritan congregations
of New England are said to have had music committees one of the chief
duties of which was to go among the folk and gather attractive
melodies to be used as hymns. And this was also the custom of the
Primitive Methodists, both in Great Britain and in America. In writing
of this usage at a later date, Chappell says: "The Primitive
Methodists ... acting upon the principle of 'Why should the devil have
all the pretty tunes?' collect the airs which are sung at pot and
public houses, and write their hymns to them ... in this sect we have
living examples of the 'puritans who sing psalms to horn-pipes,' They
do not mince the matter by turning them into slow tunes, ... but sing
them in their original lively time."
This brings us to the nineteenth century, in which appeared the
"shape-note hymnals" from which the material in this volume is chiefly
drawn. The existence of these books was scarcely known to musicians
and music-lovers until recently, when they were vividly brought to the
attention of the musical world by Dr. George Pullen Jackson in his
book, _White Spirituals in the Southern Uplands_. Music lovers were
astonished to learn of the existence of these old books, containing a
wealth of uniquely beautiful hymn-tunes, largely folk-tunes and others
composed in the same idiom. A majority of these are in the old modes
and among them are the tunes of folk-songs, ballads, country-dances
and even morris-dances. But musicians were even more surprised to
learn that there are literally hundreds of thousands of devotees, in
homes, in little gatherings and big singing conventions covering a
broad region which stretches from the Valley of Virginia to the plains
of Texas, who enthusiastically preserve and practise this tradition.
That this usage should have lived on from pioneer times into our
present day, when not only what we buy but what we are, is stereotyped
by the processes of mass production, seems little short of miraculous.
But it is explained by the innate vigour of the tradition itself, by
the great love of the tradition-bearers for the old tunes and, not
least, by the fact that the books embodying the material used shape
notes.
Shape notes, as is explained in _White Spirituals_, indicate their
pitch by their shapes, independently of the lines and spaces of the
staff. They were invented to simplify the reading of music. There are
two principal systems, the Four Shape and the Seven Shape. In the Four
Shape, the first and fourth degrees of the scale are called _fa_ and
are represented by a right triangle; the second and fifth are called
_sol_, represented by a round shape; the third and sixth, _la_, by a
square head and the seventh, _mi_, by a diamond. The Seven Shape
system has a different form of note for each degree of the scale and
the nomenclature accords with our general practice. The nomenclature
of the Four Shape system is of especial interest because it was known
and practised by Shakespeare. Numerous references to it occur in his
plays. In _King Lear_ this system is employed in an almost Wagnerian
manner to characterize the archvillain, Edmund, who in soliloquy says:
"My cue is villanous melancholy" and then sings: "Fa, sol, la, mi."
These four tones measure the extent of a tritone, the forbidden
interval called the _diabolus_ or the devil and supposed to be filled
with sinister, ominous and evil potency.
As shape notes increased in popularity, bitter controversy arose
between their supporters and those of the ordinary staff notes. This
was most fortunate, for it gave the fa-sol-la folk a coherence and a
sturdier determination to abide by their principles and practices,
which enabled them to resist the erosion of modern life and so
preserve their beautiful heritage.
Many folk-tunes associated with sacred words have been passed down
also solely by the process of oral tradition. Mr. Ernest La Prade,
author of _Alice in Orchestralia_, recently learned of two groups of
Primitive Baptists, one in New Jersey and the other in Philadelphia,
which still use in their worship only tunes preserved by this process.
He was fortunate enough to record several of the hymns from a member
of the New Jersey congregation, some of which were modal and all of
which were of the type contained in the shape-note books.
The value of these books to students and lovers of our folk-music is
incalculable. For although many of the tunes are still extant in the
oral tradition, a large portion of them, of indubitable folk origin,
have vanished from the oral tradition and, but for these books, would
be entirely lost. All who are familiar with the folk-dance revival in
England realize the importance of Playford's _English Dancing Master_
in preserving a large number of tunes and dances that were no longer
traditionally extant. The folk material embodied in the shape-note
books is no less important and far more varied; it is, in fact,
indispensible to all who desire a comprehensive knowledge of British
and American folk-music.
Gratitude is due Dr. Jackson for making this material accessible to
the public, and admiration, for the painstaking and scholarly way in
which he presents his fascinating subject. The tunes are historically
important in showing approximately the state of the oral tradition at
the time they were written down in the past century. It would be
difficult to overestimate their esthetic value. In metrical and
rhythmic structure, especially in balance and contrast in phrase
lengths; in beauty and eloquence of melodic line, many are unsurpassed
by even the best of our traditional tunes. It is not too much to hope
that a revival of interest in this music may result in a general use
of it in our churches, where its native vigour, unaffected
straightforwardness and lyric beauty could go far in freeing us from
the insipid banalities of much present-day church music.