2025 North Carolina Shape-Note Singing Convention
The annual all-day North Carolina Shape-Note Singing Convention will return to Pullen Memorial Baptist Church on Saturday, March 8, 2025.
Singers who meet monthly to sing in Raleigh and Durham will host the event. In past years, 80–100 singers have attended from across NC as well as from several other states.
This event is free of charge. Registration will open at 9:30 a.m., and singing will commence at 10:00 a.m. We will pause for a potluck lunch around noon, and then continue until about 3:30 pm or until our voices give out, whichever happens first!
Extra copies of the tune books, The Sacred Harp (1991) and The Shenandoah Harmony, will be available to borrow. Anyone is welcome to sing or to listen, and to stay for a little while or all day.
New to Shape Note Singing?
Shape-note music is participatory, not a performance, and formal music training is not required. Singers sit in a hollow square, one voice part per side (treble, alto, tenor/lead, bass), and anyone can sing any part. Many people take turns requesting tunes and leading them. The term “shape note” derives from the shaped note heads in the music: rather than all round notes, there are triangles, circles, squares, and diamonds. To help singers learn or remember the tune, the participants “sing the shapes” (fa, sol, la, mi) the first time through before moving on to the text.
We hope you can join us for any part of the day!
Event Links
Facebook: https://go.evvnt.com/2829047-0
