shape-note singing

Shape-note singing is a choral tradition using notation where note heads have distinct shapes—triangles, squares, circles, ovals—to indicate pitch within the scale.

Singers learn to read music by associating shapes with syllables (fa, sol, la, mi) rather than absolute pitches.

The practice dates to 18th-century American singing schools and survives in Sacred Harp gatherings, where participants sit in a hollow square facing inward: We drove three hours to a shape-note singing in rural Georgia.