What We Learned from Early American Hymnbooks

The Musical World That Shaped the Emma Smith Hymnal

What We Can Learn from Early American Hymnbooks

When I began restoring the Emma Smith Hymnal, I assumed I was entering a fairly well-defined musical world. I imagined there would be a handful of standard hymn tunes, a common style of worship, and fairly clear answers about what the early Saints sang.

I couldn't have been more mistaken.

One of the greatest surprises of this project was discovering that early America was filled with an astonishing variety of sacred music.

There was no single "Restoration sound."

Instead, the early Saints inherited a rich tapestry of musical traditions that reflected the people, places, and churches from which they came.

Understanding that changed the way I approached nearly every hymn in this collection

A Nation Finding Its Voice

America in the early nineteenth century was still discovering its own musical identity.

Frontier communities, New England congregations, Methodist camp meetings, Baptist singing schools, and Presbyterian churches all contributed to a growing body of sacred music.

As families moved westward, they carried their hymnbooks with them.

As new converts gathered from different denominations—and eventually from Great Britain—they brought new musical traditions into the growing Restoration.

The result was not one style of worship.

It was many.

The Books That Filled America's Homes

As I searched for tunes, I kept encountering the same remarkable early American hymnbooks.

Collections such as Southern Harmony, Missouri Harmony, Kentucky Harmony, The Easy Instructor, and many others preserved melodies that were widely known throughout the frontier.

Some emphasized simple folk tunes.

Others reflected the growing influence of formal music education.

Some introduced shape-note notation.

Others printed conventional staff notation.

Each offered a different window into the worship of early American Christians.

Rather than competing with one another, they reveal just how vibrant and diverse sacred music had become.

Revival Music Changed the Landscape

The great revival movements of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries also left their mark on Christian worship.

Large outdoor camp meetings brought together hundreds—even thousands—of worshippers.

The music needed to be memorable.

Easy to learn.

Easy to sing.

Simple choruses, lively melodies, and heartfelt participation allowed entire congregations to join their voices together.

These songs were never intended to impress audiences.

They were written to help ordinary people worship God.

That spirit of congregational participation profoundly influenced American hymnody.

More Than One Musical Tradition

As the Restoration grew, its members naturally sang from the musical traditions they already knew.

Some loved the sturdy folk harmonies of the frontier.

Others preferred the more refined hymn tunes arriving from England.

Still others embraced the growing popularity of shape-note singing.

Rather than trying to force every hymn into one musical style, we came to appreciate that the early Saints themselves likely experienced a wide variety of sacred music.

That realization gave us greater freedom to honor the richness of their musical world.

Why This Changed Everything

Perhaps the greatest lesson these early hymnbooks taught us was this:

History is rarely as simple as we imagine.

Instead of searching for one "correct" sound, we began asking a better question:

What musical world surrounded the people who first sang these hymns?

The answer proved far richer—and far more beautiful—than we expected.

A Living Heritage

The pages of those old hymnbooks are more than historical documents.

They preserve the voices of ordinary Christians who gathered in homes, schools, churches, and frontier meetinghouses to worship God through song.

Their melodies continue to remind us that sacred music has never belonged to a single tradition.

It belongs to God's people.

And every generation has been invited to add its own voice to the great chorus of praise.

Editor's Discovery

One of the happiest surprises of this project was discovering that early American sacred music was wonderfully diverse. The more tune books we explored, the more we realized there was no single "correct" sound of the Restoration. That discovery helped us appreciate the richness of the musical heritage Emma Smith inherited as she compiled the first hymnbook of the Restoration.

Continue the Journey

Next time, we'll step inside an early American singing school and discover how Christians actually learned these hymns—and why their worship looked and sounded very different from what many of us experience today.