76 PART 1 | FROM COLONIZATION THROUGH THE CIVIL WAR
the United States and beyond to meet, often monthly, to sing from The Sacred
Harp. Annual singing conventions today regularly draw hundreds of enthusias-
tic singers, not only in the South but even in New England, where many features
of the music originated but long ago fell out of favor. The energ y behind this
new return to the past has more to do, generally speaking, with the discovery
in recent decades of so-called “roots music” and its attendant cultural and social
values—discussed in chapter 21—than with Christian religious expression.
Yet while its subject matter is religious, the activity of Sacred Harp singing
has always been nonliturgical. Even when singing meetings are held in a church,
they are events distinct from worship services. Educationally speaking, Southern
shape-note hymnody is a direct descendant of the Regular Singing movement
that began in the 1720s with the aim of improving congregational singing, but
liturgical use has never been its intent. It is quite different from the type of music
sung by most American Protestant congregations today, which follows a differ-
ent line of descent. That line may be traced from the reform movement of early
nineteenth-century New England and the work of Lowell Mason. As the most
important musical reformer in America’s history, Mason stands as a key fi gure in
music’s development not only in American churches but also in American public
schools.EDIFICATION AND ECONOMICS:
THE CAREER OF LOWELL MASONLowell Mason (1792–1872) is remembered not only as a signifi cant reformer of
sacred music but also as the “father” of public school music. His success in both
areas was due to his grasp of the close ties between sacred and secular institu-
tions in the United States. French writer Alexis de Tocqueville noted in his clas-
sic Democracy in America (1835) that whereas in France he had seen “the spirits
of religion and democracy almost always marching in opposite directions,” in
America he found them “intimately linked together in joint reign over the same
land.” Nowhere was that more true than in the free institution of public school-
ing, which was steeped in the religious spirit. Mason’s involvement in both
church and school music thus seemed natural and complementary.
Moreover, when Mason enlarged his sphere of activity to include educa-
tion, he vastly increased his range of potential customers. He also grew rich.
Like the Yankee psalmodists before him, Mason approached sacred music with
a commercial, entrepreneurial spirit. Unlike them, however, he recognized an
opportunity to profi t from the common ground between religion and free insti-
tutions, thereby discovering that edifi cation could be big business.MASON AS HYMNODIST
Born in Medfi eld, Massachusetts, Mason attended singing school as a youngster
and also learned to play a variety of instruments, including the organ. In 1812, at
age twenty, he left home and spent the next fi fteen years in Savannah, Georgia,
where he worked as a bank clerk, led church choirs, and studied harmony andnonliturgical setting172028_03_063-085_r3_ko.indd 76 23/01/13 8:12 PM