William Walker (composer)
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William Walker (May 6, 1809 - September 24, 1875) was a Baptist song leader, shape note "singing master", and compiler of three shape note tunebooks¹. He was born in South Carolina, and grew up near Spartanburg. Walker married Amy Golightly. Benjamin Franklin White, publisher of the Sacred Harp, married her sister Thurza.
In 1835, Walker published a tunebook entitled The Southern Harmony, using the four-shape shape note system of notation. In 1846 he came out with The Southern and Western Pocket Harmonist, intended as an appendix to the Southern Harmony. In 1866, he published another tunebook entitled Christian Harmony, in which he changed from four shape to seven shape notation. He incorporated over half of the contents of The Southern Harmony in the Christian Harmony. For the additional three shapes, Walker devised his own system - an inverted key-stone for "do", a quarter-moon for "re", and an isoceles triangle for "si" (or "ti"). Editions of the Christian Harmony are still available printed with Walker's system, as well as in the more common shapes patented by Jesse B. Aiken. The standard four shapes, the Aiken and Walker seven shapes, and other shape note systems may be viewed at What are the Shapes and Why? (http://fasola.org/introduction/note_shapes.html)
References
- A Checklist of Four-Shape Shape-Note Tunebooks, by Richard J. Stanislaw
- White Spirituals in the Southern Uplands, by George Pullen Jackson
Footnote
1. Musicologist George Pullen Jackson believed that Walker also published a Sunday School tunebook in 1869, called Fruits and Flowers.