Star in the East

The roots of Southern (and Christian) Harmony singing (like The Sacred Harp) are found in the American colonial era. In 1801, a book called The Easy Instructor by William Smith and William Little was published for the use of this movement; its distinguishing feature was the employment of four separate shapes that indicated the notes according to the rules of solfege. To avoid proliferating shapes excessively, each shape (and its associated syllable) except for mi was assigned to two notes of the musical scale. A major scale in the system would be sung Fa – Sol – La – Fa – Sol – La – Mi – Fa, and a minor scale would be La – Mi – Fa – Sol – La – Fa – Sol – La.

It should be noted that the traditional methods of this rich heritage (still practiced by thousands today) dictate that the choir begin singing a piece with the appropriate solfege syllable for each pitch, using the shapes to guide them. Once the shapes have been sung, the group then sings the actual text of the song.

The Southern Harmony cites the publication Baptist Harmony as the source of this tune. Staunton S. Burdett first published Baptist Harmony in 1834, and he traces the tune’s origin to Christian Lyre. The first volume of The Christian Lyre was published by Jonathan Leavitt in New York in 1830; the tune, set for melody and bass, appears there without attribution.