Singing The Gamut

From poignant to playful, this collection of poetry and verse sings through a solar year of thoughtfulness, whimsy, nostalgia, fun, and devotion. Nature is never far away on these pages, which begin and end with the joy and gloom of the winter solstice. Like life, this collection is unpredictable: sometimes waggish, sometimes tearful, sometimes metered and rhymed, sometimes in free form—but always with music in the words. The poems follow the author's memories and thoughts in moonlight, in sunlight, and in awe for the Maker of both.

Before the American Civil War, men and women who imagined a multiracial American society (social visionaries) included Protestant sacred music in their speeches and writings. Music affirmed the humanity and equality of Indians, whites and blacks and validated blacks and Indians as Americans. In contrast to dominant voices of white racial privilege, social visionaries criticized republican hypocrisy and Christian hypocrisy. Many social visionaries wrote hymns, transcending racial lines and creating a sense of equality among singers and their audience. Singing and reading Protestant sacred music encouraged community formation that led to American human rights activism in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Excerpt from The Gamut, or Scale of Music: Being a Plain and Concise System of Rudiments, or Introduction to Practical Psalmody, for the Use of Singing Schools There are three kinds or modifications of Time in Church music, viz. Common, Triple, and Compound, the two first of which have each three Modes, and the latter two. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.