CHAPTER 21
Independent Study: Billings and the North American Sacred Tradition
OVERVIEW
This chapter treats the subject of late Baroque sacred music from the perspective of American
colonial hymnody of William Billings, with an emphasis on the lining-out and shape-note
singing traditions. Billings illustrates the independent nature of sacred music composition
developed in the American colonies in the late 1700s.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1. To understand the earlier seventeenth-century practice of lining-out in colonial American
psalmody
2. To understand the growing interest in promoting musical literacy among eighteenth-century
American congregations, evidenced in the practice of shape-note singing
3. To recognize William Billings as a late-eighteenth–century American composer who
developed a style of sacred composition distinct from established European traditions
LECTURE SUGGESTIONS
1. Engage in some lining-out with your students. Start with something simple and familiar (e.g.,
Mary Had a Little Lamb) and move to something more complex (e.g., the first line of
Billings’s melody to David’s Lamentation), emphasizing that as the melodies and texts
become more involved, the more heterophonic the class singing will become (many people
singing with slight variants of the same melody and simultaneously). Connect this back to
the New England church leaders’ encouragement of music-reading among congregants to
defend against the imprecise musical results of the oral lining–pit tradition.
2. Share with your students some examples of shape notation from early shape-note hymnals
and songbooks (The Sacred Harp, Southern Harmony, etc.). Illustrate how the system
works, and venture a sight-reading of a few selections: New Britain (Amazing Grace) and
Antioch (Joy to the World) from William Walker’s Southern Harmony (1834) are familiar
examples; remember that the melody is in the tenor line. Next, show your class the music to
Billings’s David’s Lamentation, a version of which also appears in Southern Harmony. Try
lining-out the melody (as in Lecture Suggestion 1) and then play a recorded version of the
example with Billings’s added parts.
ASSIGNMENT SUGGESTIONS
1. Search online for various performances of Billings’s David’s Lamentation and
compare/contrast the performance styles of each rendition.
2. Do you hear any word-painting gestures in Billings’s David’s Lamentation? How do they
compare with those of Palestrina’s Pope Marcellus Mass or Josquin’s Ave maria . . . virgo
serena? Are there any connections between these various settings and the theological
temperaments of pre-Reformation Catholic polyphony, Counter-Reformation polyphony,
and American colonial polyphony?
TEACHING CHALLENGES
If you do choose to introduce shape-note singing to your students, getting everyone to sing the
same syllables and pitches may present a challenge. If you experience this problem, have
students sing just the melody back on the syllable “da” or “la,” or display for them the syllables
on the board or in the music.
SUPPLEMENTAL REPERTORY
Excerpts from the Bay Psalm Book (1698 ed.)
Billings: Creation from The Continental Harmony (fuging tune)
SUPPLEMENTAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
McKay, David P., and Richard Crawford. William Billings of Boston. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1975. The leading scholarly monograph on Billings. The Prologue
(“Eighteenth–Century Church Music in New England”) offers a useful introduction to the
cultural and religious climate of Billings’s Boston.
Miller, Kiri. Traveling Home: Sacred Harp Singing and American Pluralism. Urbana and
Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2008. Miller’s introduction provides an informative
overview of the sacred harp shape-note singing tradition in America.
CHAPTER OUTLINE
Independent Study: Billings and the North American Sacred Tradition (Chapter 21)
I. From “Lining–Out” to Singing Schools
A. 17th-century New England
1. psalm singing, Calvinist-inspired Pilgrims and Puritans
2. lining-out: method of psalm singing
a. line sung by leader, congregation repeated line
b. equal participation in musical worship
c. modifications of melody resulted in complex texture
3. 1720s, “singing schools” sponsored
a. reading music encouraged, taught congregations notation
b. need for printed instructional materials
c. semi-professional teaching opportunities arose
d. polyphonic singing sometimes embraced
e. growing musical literacy
B. William Billings (1746–1800)
1. most famous American composer of polyphonic repertory
2. self-taught musician; practiced other trades
3. taught at Boston-area singing schools
4. musical publications became popular
a. mixed sacred texts with political references
5. close connections to radical elements of independence movement
6. viewed as iconic figure
7. died in poverty
8. output: over 340 works used in singing schools and churches, six primary collections,
including The New England Psalm-Singer
C. Billings and The New England Psalm-Singer (1770)
1. original works by Billings
a. departure from British arrangements
2. frontispiece engraved by Paul Revere
3. introduction discussed basics of notation
4. music not bound by European traditions
a. simple homophonic textures
b. melody often in tenor line
c. occasional passages of imitation
D. David’s Lamentation
1. text: paraphrase of biblical passage
a. single stanza, second section repeated
2. designed for sacred congregational singing
E. Listening Guide 10: Billings, David’s Lamentation (published 1778)
1. anthem, SATB voices; (A-B-B)
2. A section: homophony in all voices
3. B section: short solo in bass
a. full ensemble in homophony
b. quasi-imitative passage
4. final homophonic close