About the On-line Southern Harmony

"William Walker's The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion is a remarkable book by virtually any measure. During the nineteenth century, when advertising was mainly by word of mouth . . . Southern Harmony sold about six hundred thousand copies. It is perhaps the most popular tunebook ever printed. Its longevity is also remarkable: it is still being used and sung from with loving care over one hundred and fifty years after its first edition. It is virtually unparalleled as a repository of the musical idioms current in the early nineteenth century, as well as of earlier idioms that were already becoming rare at the time of its publication. And it is one of the prime resources for succeeding generations of tunebooks. . . . this must be considered a publication of remarkable import." -- From the introduction to the University Press of Kentucky edition

The first electronic edition was based on an Informix database and LiveWire programs running in conjunction with a Netscape Enterprise server. The hymns and bibliographic information reside in the database and the pages are generated on demand. The pages generated by the database program (except for search results) were then all copied to disk using a Perl program.

The Second CCEL Edition

The Southern Harmony has been re-done as a ThML edition. It can be used as a standard CCEL book or as a part of the new Hymnary.

Credits

Peter Irvine, ObJN has recorded the midi files. See his web site.
Vic Johanson typed in the texts.
Guy-Paul Bédard is creating PDF sheet music.
Harry Plantinga set up the database and programs and scanned page images.