# Shape Note (シェイプノート)

> The American hymnody notation that reshaped note heads into triangles, squares and diamonds for fast sight-reading. The Sacred Harp tunebooks and singings made notation design a community tool.

- IndexStyle No.423 — https://indexstyle.org/styles/shape-note
- Kind: Style · Family: Notation Systems · Era: 1801–
- Mood: Intimacy, Trust, Nostalgia
- Color cues: #e9e6dd / #67635d / #171615 (cues taken from reference works, not a fixed palette)

## Defining characteristics

- Differently shaped note heads
- Fa-sol-la solmization
- Four-part tunebook typesetting
- Singing in a hollow square

## Best used for

- Comparing primary sources and canonical works
- Extracting principles that transfer to other media

## Research method

This entry records a historical style; derive the treatment from its sources rather than a fixed recipe:

- Observe the letters, signs and scale of reference works
- Extract the one structure that governs gaze and information
- Verify the materials and behaviors specific to era, region and process

## What to avoid

Don't reduce it to surface signs. Verify the context of era, region, technology and makers.

## Application checklist

Before calling a piece an application of this style, check it against the defining characteristics:

- [ ] Differently shaped note heads
- [ ] Fa-sol-la solmization
- [ ] Four-part tunebook typesetting
- [ ] Singing in a hollow square
- [ ] At least one reference work below has been studied directly
- [ ] The caution above ("What to avoid") has been addressed

## Related styles

- **Staff Notation (五線譜)** — From Guido's lines to the five-line staff: pitch fixed to coordinates. Time running left to right, height mapped up and down — the longest-lived format in information design, in continuous use for a millennium. → https://indexstyle.org/styles/staff-notation
- **Sheet Music Cover (楽譜表紙)** — The lithographed covers sustained by the parlor piano: scene illustration and ornamental lettering in a single image — the graphics that showed music before the record sleeve existed. → https://indexstyle.org/styles/sheet-music-cover

## Further study

- The Sacred Harp, 1844
- the singing-school tradition
- the Little and Smith four-shape system

## Reference works

- 『サザン・ハーモニー』のアメイジング・グレイス — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:New%20Britain%20Southern%20Harmony%20Amazing%20Grace.jpg
- シェイプノートの歌の集会（CC BY-SA 4.0） — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Seattle%20Sacred%20Harp%20Singing%20Convention%2020160221.jpg

## Source of record

- fasola.org — Sacred Harp singing — https://fasola.org/

## Machine surfaces

- JSON: https://indexstyle.org/api/styles/shape-note
- Image-generation prompt (legally clean): https://indexstyle.org/styles/shape-note/prompt.txt
- MCP: https://indexstyle.org/mcp (tools: search_styles, get_style, compose_styles; prompts: image-prompt, apply-style)

## 日本語

音符の頭を三角・四角・菱形に変え、読譜を素早く習得させた米国の賛美歌記譜。『セイクリッド・ハープ』の歌集と歌の集会が、記譜デザインを共同体の道具にした。

特徴: 形の違う符頭／ファソラの階名唱／四声の歌集組版／中空の正方形で歌う集会
注意: 表面的な記号へ還元せず、時代・地域・技術・制作主体の文脈を確認する。