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| Shaker music | |
|---|---|
| Name | Shaker music |
| Cultural origin | 18th century England and United States |
| Instruments | Banjo, organ, voice, clapping, tambourine |
| Subgenres | Hymns, anthems, children's songs, ritual songs |
Shaker music is the body of hymnody, ritual songs, and communal melodies produced by the United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing, commonly known as the Shakers. It arose in the 18th century within transatlantic networks linking Manchester and Lancaster in England to early communities in New York, Massachusetts, and Kentucky in the United States. Shaker music informed and reflected Shaker theology, communal practices, and aesthetic values while interacting with broader American religious song traditions such as Shape note singing, Gospel music, and New England psalmody.
Shaker music developed alongside the formation of the United Society of Believers in the 18th century, influenced by figures and movements including Ann Lee, Mother Ann Lee, and contemporaneous groups in Manchester and Lancaster. Early congregations migrated to colonial and post-Revolutionary United States locales such as Watervliet, New York, Mount Lebanon, Sabbatarian communities, and settlements in Pleasant Hill, Kentucky and Canterbury. Interaction with itinerant revivalists associated with the Second Great Awakening, Charles Finney, and pacifist currents reshaped repertoire and practice. By the mid-19th century, repositories at Mount Lebanon and Albany documented thousands of songs performed at communities like New Lebanon and Enfield. Collections preserved in institutions such as the Library of Congress, American Antiquarian Society, Smithsonian Institution, and Yale University later facilitated scholarly work by figures like Walter R. Taylor and Edwin Deming Andrews. The late 19th and 20th centuries saw waning membership amid urbanization and interactions with movements including Transcendentalism and the Arts and Crafts movement, while 20th-century collectors such as Alan Lomax, Harry Smith, and Robert A. Hall recorded surviving singers and manuscripts.
Shaker repertoire includes short hymns, expansive anthems, spiritual visions set to music, and children's songs. Melodies tend toward modal tonality and diatonic simplicity similar to Early American music traditions like Sacred Harp and Wyeth's Repository, with occurrences of pentatonic and Mixolydian modes noted by scholars such as Richard Crawford and Katherine K. Preston. Rhythmic patterns range from straightforward metrical hymnody comparable to Isaac Watts settings to free meters resembling contemporary Mystical writers and visionary composers. Texts often derive from revelations associated with Ann Lee, letters exchanged among elders at communities like Mount Lebanon, and printed hymnals such as the Shaker publications issued at New Lebanon Ministry presses. Formally, songs include strophic hymns, responsory chants, and movement songs accompanying ecstatic practices documented in accounts by observers including Charles C. Mead and Eldress Sarah Bates.
Although committed to simplicity, Shakers employed instruments including the tenor banjo, reed organ, and hand percussion in certain communities while prioritizing unaccompanied singing in others. Performance practice varied between communities such as Canterbury, New Hampshire and Hancock, Massachusetts, with divisions of parts sometimes resembling multipart harmony found in 19th-century American choral societies and contradance ensembles in New England. Ornamentation is generally restrained; emphasis rests on clear diction and communal participation akin to practices in Mennonite and Quaker meetings observed by travelers like Fanny Trollope. Notation appears in manuscripts preserved at repositories including New York Public Library and the American Antiquarian Society, showing lead-line melodies with occasional harmony annotations, and later transcriptions by collectors in the Library of Congress's American Folklife Center.
Prominent Shaker songwriters include Elders and Eldresses such as Elder Joseph Meacham, Elder Issachar Bates, Elder Robert Owen (as associated figure—note his different movement), Elder Benjamin Youngs, Silesia Knapp, Lucy Wright, Anna White, and Martha Anderson. Well-known compositions attributed within the tradition encompass melodies and texts identified in songbooks from Mount Lebanon and Watervliet, with titles later popularized by collectors and performers such as Julius Sachs and Israel Goldstein. Some songs entered wider American culture through recordings by artists and ensembles tied to Alan Lomax, Mose Allison, Joan Baez, Peter, Paul and Mary, The New Lost City Ramblers, Odetta, Emmylou Harris, Joan Baez, and choral groups like the Robert Shaw Chorale. Modern arrangements by composers and arrangers including Aaron Copland, Benjamin Britten (in comparative studies), David Lang, and ensembles such as The King's Singers have further disseminated Shaker tunes, alongside renditions on albums produced by labels like Folkways Records.
Music functioned as both doctrinal expression and practical means of organizing daily life. Hymn-singing accompanied sacramental gatherings, Labor Meetings, and communal tasks at places like Mount Lebanon, Canterbury, Harvard-area villages, and Pleasant Hill. Songs codified beliefs about celibacy, communal labor, and spiritual perfection articulated by leaders such as Ann Lee and recorded by secretaries in minute books held at archives including the Shaker Museum Mount Lebanon and the Hancock Shaker Village. Singing accompanied dance, work rhythms, and ritual movements described in travelogues by E. P. Thompson and observers like Julia Ward Howe. Children's songs and schooling used simple tunes paralleling contemporaneous pedagogical music in Boston and Philadelphia.
Shaker music influenced American hymnody, folk revivals, and modern composers tied to the American folk music revival and the New Music movement. Collectors such as Ralph Rinzler, Alan Lomax, and Harry Smith helped reintroduce tunes to Chicago, New York City, and Los Angeles audiences, while revival ensembles and solo artists incorporated Shaker songs into repertoires alongside Appalachian music and Afro-American spirituals. Preservation efforts by institutions including the American Antiquarian Society, Library of Congress, Smithsonian Folkways, Shaker Museum Mount Lebanon, and Hancock Shaker Village maintain manuscripts, field recordings, and artifacts. Contemporary composers and performers—ranging from chamber choirs in Cambridge, Massachusetts to folk ensembles in Nashville—continue to adapt Shaker melodies, securing a legacy visible in exhibitions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, programming at the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and scholarly work in journals published by Oxford University Press and Cambridge University Press.
Category:American folk music Category:Religious music