USA hymnody, music

Psalmody in the 17th and 18th Centuries The early settlers of the British North American colonies—including the Anglicans of Jamestown, the Pilgrims and Puritans of Plymouth and the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and the French and Dutch of New Amsterdam—generally relied upon Genevan and/or English psalm tunes for the musical settings of their congregational singing. These tunes were mostly sung from memory, aided by the lining-out process (see Scottish Psalter* and Lining out* for a description of this practice), though it may be that some precentors used published collections in song leading or in preparation for worship. The ninth edition of the Bay Psalm Book (Boston, 1698) was the first...

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