Shape note hymnody uses shaped note heads to represent the notes of a scale. The old system, sometimes called fasola, uses four syllables; tunes are harmonized in three or four parts with the melody in the tenor and are sung unaccompanied. Reynolds Price has called the result "that eerie set of hymns, harsh as scraped glass but hot as mystic transport." Singers sit in a hollow square, grouped by part, with a leader in the middle. This isn't concert music; it's energetic, unsubtle, and best when you're in the square. The Sacred Harp, the best known shape-note hymnbook, was first published in 1844 by two Georgians; the latest revision came out in 1992 and sold fifteen thousand copies in three years. The selection here is taken from this hymnbook; Hugh McGraw, Secretary of the Sacred Harp Publishing Company, leads a company of the best Sacred Harp singers from Georgia and Alabama through "Zion's Walls". The song is available on Rounder Records' The Social Harp. (AU Format) (Real Audio Format)