In Atlanta, there is a small, white church on Powers Ferry Road whose members sing with a throaty sound. While passing by to admire perhaps some old architectural aspect of the church or its garden, my high school piano teacher heard their singing through the window. Always curious, she ventured in and a member of the congregation handed her a hymnal and invited her to sing. She was baffled by the notation and had to ask for help. The “unique” musical notation in which their hymnals were written is called shaped-notes. Recalling her story, I decided to do some research on shaped-notation and discovered that it is quite a popular past-time to gather together for shaped-note singing. At first, I considered the topic of how the type of singing (throaty-sound) correlates with shaped-notes. But I think musical notation does not correlate with specific sounds; it is only the way shaped-note singers sing. I conducted further research online from Google’s search engine, which brought me to an even broader topic of, “music notation in the twenty-first century.” Typing the latter topic in, I discovered Kurt Stone’s “Music Notation in the Twentieth Century.” Therefore, currently I have yet to narrow down on my topic.

Topic Statement (Nov. 27th, 2002)