[edjw]

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.

[toast0]

> You don't have to learn key signatures to sing from shapenote notation. So it's less work to pick it up.

You don't really need to learn them in roundnotes either? Like yeah, I know that C major is all natural, G major is one sharp, etc but I don't really need to know that, the key signature is on the left side of the staff. I guess you need to learn to apply those sharps and flats though, of course.

> 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.

This makes a lot of sense. I never really internalized intervals with scored music (although maybe a bit with playing from chord charts); I internalized the position on the staff to the fingering for the note. If I learned to sing this way, I'd internalize position on the staff to pitch; like B flat sounds like [hmmm] or something. I guess you're saying singing by intervals is easier than singing by named notes? But you can really do both with shaped notes, so all the better. :)

[elliottkember]

> I guess you need to learn to apply those sharps and flats though, of course.

Yeah, there's a big difference between fingered instruments and singing. When you're playing on a fingered instrument, it's quite easy to apply incidentals – you get a feeling for the shape of the scale (and you practice scales to help with that). But unless you have perfect pitch, you're only _ever_ singing intervals. And good luck when the key changes from F# Major to Eb Minor halfway through the piece!

Another factor is that these singers likely do not play any other instruments, so they don't have any visual or tactile reference for sharps or flats – all keys are sung exactly the same way. When you're singing "by ear", you place the note in the scale you're singing.

[edjw]

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.

You can hear it on any recording but around 0:15 here is an example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8bKu52cv6o

[recursive]

Not sure if you did this on purpose but the notes in F# major are the same as those in Eb minor, just not the spellings.

[elliottkember]

Case in point exactly. The notes you play are the same, but they’re in a different spot on the staff.

[jachee]

> singing by intervals is easier than singing by named notes?

Infinitely easier, unless one has perfect pitch. :)

[swores]

> "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."

I can't speak to which is easier to get to a competent level, but that doesn't sound any different to traditional notation - after a while you internalise the intervals between notes (but you're just looking at where the note is in the score's lines, along with any flats/sharps in the key or on the note - rather than shapes). But you still get to the point where you see two notes and "just know what [x to y] feels and sounds like".