“While he was still young enough to carry the nickname ‘Little Boy’ he could hear the harmony in a tune. In his early teens, now simply called ‘Boy’ by his parents and sisters, Monroe learned to sight-read music using he 7-scale shape note system. Shape notes, taught in the singing schools of the day, used a series of triangles, circles, trapezoids and squares to represent the root ‘do’ of the scale and all the other tones. Monroe was an excellent sight-reader. If he didn’t know the song, he could quickly learn it … if it were transcribed into shapes.
(After he married Anna) music became a recreational pastime for Monroe and throughout the following years the Alderson house was the gathering place for amateur musicians. Monroe may have stopped performing in public, but he never stopped entertaining.”
from An Ordinary Day
Very appropriate post for Father’s Day weekend. I wonder if we could have learned ‘shaped’notes as fast as your dad did. Probably, but it seems like clogging: the older one is, the harder it is to learn. xoxo
Love the picture with this excerpt from your book! Hope this Father’s Day has brought you sweet memories of your dad!
Sweet tribute. I bet all those jam sessions/pickings were fun, fun.