Fa-Sol-La-Mi

Spivey Hall hosts shape-note singing school | Clayton News Daily

Just over a dozen “students,” some of whom are choir singers, and others, music teachers, spent Friday participating in a class on how to do Sacred Harp/shape-note singing, at Clayton State University’s Spivey Hall. Class instructor, Richard DeLong, the executive secretary of the Sacred Harp Publishing Company, which produces a book of shape-note songs, said the singing style is one of the oldest in the United States.

“The Southern people have been preserving this way of singing since the early 1800’s,” said DeLong. “Families have passed it down to their children, who in turn, passed it down to their children, and it’s lived on through the generations that way.”

I'm not sure why the scare-quotes around "students", unless it's to emphasize that some of these students are significantly older than the average Clayton State freshman. Oreta is quoted late in the article.