MUSIC: Farther Along: A Conference on the Southern Gospel Convention-Singing Tradition

Middle Tennessee State University

Murfreesboro, Tennessee, USA

Southern gospel convention singing is an amateur American musical tradition in which practitioners train at singing schools and gather at monthly and annual singings to sing and play from upright, or octavo, "new books" containing southern gospel songs in seven-shape notation. Historically it follows the four-shape tradition (Southern Harmony, Sacred Harp, etc.) and has been led primarily by publishers such as Ruebush-Kieffer, Anthony J. Showalter, James D. Vaughan, Stamps-Baxter, Hartford, and others. These publishers also sponsored the largest and best-known singing schools from the 1870s through the early 1960s. Emphasizing new songs in the gospel style, as opposed to the four-shape tradition's more conservative bent, the southern gospel convention tradition also embraces the use of instruments, most particularly piano, to accompany the singers. In addition, this amateur tradition and the publishing and educational industry that accompanies it have been the fertile ground from which has come many well-known songs, and from which has emerged the world of professional southern gospel.

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