"Meticulous in its research, encyclopedic in its detail, this reference volume is the first such work written for a shape-note songbook. Modeled on the various guidebooks to contemporary denominational hymnals, it provides commentary on every text, tune, author, and composer represented in M.L. Swan's New Harp of Columbia, a shape-note book originally published in Knoxville, Tennessee, in 1867.".

"The shape-note tradition first flourished in the small towns and rural areas of early America. Church-sponsored "singing schools" taught a form of musical notation in which the notes were assigned different shapes to indicate variations in pitch; this method worked well with congregants who had little knowledge of standard musical notation.

Today many enthusiasts carry on the shape-note tradition, and The New Harp of Columbia (recently published in a "restored edition" by the University of Tennessee Press) is one of five shape-note singing-manuals still in use."--BOOK JACKET.