Keillor Mose taught Mount Saint Mary College students how to read traditional shaped note music.
Keillor Mose, an experienced singer and teacher from the Catskills Sacred Harp Association, recently brought the vibrant world of shaped note singing to Mount Saint Mary College.
Mose has been immersed in the shaped note tradition for more than a decade and is dedicated to preserving this unique genre through teaching and performance. Six of his compositions are included in The Sacred Harp songbook, which he used to teach the art to students at the Mount.
The performer came to the college courtesy of Caitlan Truelove, adjunct instructor of Music at the Mount. He guest-lectured in two of Truelove’s classes earlier this month.
During the two classes, Mose provided an overview of the tradition, which he calls “one of the oldest genres of music in the U.S.” The Sacred Harp, he said, was first printed in 1844, but the tradition goes back to at least the early 1800s.
Mose guided the class through a “mini singing school,” starting with the history of how people learned music before the wide availability of tune books.
“Before these books were around, people didn’t know how to read music, so it was really important for somebody to know the melody and for everybody to follow along,” he said.
Shaped notes were the solution. Instead of standard round notes, this kind of music uses four distinct shapes – a triangle for fa, a circle for sol, a square for la, and a diamond for “ti” (mi) – to make sight-reading easier. The entire major scale repeats a pattern of these four shapes: Fa, Sol, La, Fa, Sol, La, Mi, Fa.
Mose hopes to continue to help preserve the history of this music “through storytelling, singing, writing, and improving digital access to field recordings,” he said.