New hymns for worship and encouragement! Expand your repertoire! While some worshipers prefer traditional hymns, others want new songs for expressing what is in their hearts. This book is for the latter. Songs are written for 4-voices (SATB--soprano, alto, tenor, bass). There are four indices in the back of this book to assist in utilizing it more efficiently: a Scripture Index, a Topical Index, a Numeric Index, and a General Index. Take advantage of them. Like the book of Psalms, this hymnal includes songs of worship and praise, faith and thanksgiving, prayer, consolation in times of grief and sorrow, and more. Many draw on specific passages of Scripture. These songs are for individuals, groups, or congregations. You can also sing them as the culmination of a devotional reading of the Scripture references. Look them up! Use this book for praise and worship, but also for personal encouragement. In difficult times, when suffering grief, loss, or uncertainty, hymns offer comfort and reassurance of faith. In good times, when joy and pleasure are overflowing, they offer a release for our enthusiasm. Hymns express the heart. New hymns are new opportunities for expression. “Songs in the night,” (Psalm 42:8; 77:6; Job 35:10), or night songs, which many of these are, help fill the quiet of a long night after a long day. They are useful for private contemplation as well as public exhortation. Many Biblical stories and characters appear in hymns, making those stories easier to remember. Yet many memorable characters and events have no corresponding hymns. Several of these new hymns are based on such stories. A variety of styles are used in these songs. Some are traditional, some contemporary. Some are patterned after spirituals, some have a southern gospel style and rhythm. Some are camp-style songs, some meditative and reflective. Some are militaristic and assertive, some melancholy. The music written is reflective of the lyrics. All of these songs are easy to learn and sing. Even those that have more complex movements and harmonies still rely on simple melodic movements. They are designed for a cappella singing. This hymnal contains 127 new songs. Five are not completely new, but arrangements or adaptations of older songs. Two are old hymns put to new music. One is a Civil War hymn now set with four-part harmony. Another is a19th century secular song with newly revised, spiritual lyrics, and minimally revised harmony. One is a European traditional tune with new harmony and lyrics. The remaining 122 songs are solely the work of the author. This book is under copyright, but the songs are all under Creative Commons. Feel free to use them. About the Shape Notes These songs are written using shape (or shaped) notes, a music notation system designed for a cappella (without instrumental accompaniment) singing. It is a form of solfege (or solfa ), a method of assigning names (syllables) to different notes in the musical scale. Solfege originated in the 11th century. It was revised in the 1700s by assigning shapes to note heads to help singers find pitches in major and minor keys without musical instruments or key signatures. Competing shape note systems developed, some with four shapes for the note heads, while others used seven shapes, one for each note of the diatonic scale. The dominant shaped note system in use today is a seven-note system devised and published by Jesse Aikin in 1846 (though four-note systems can still be found). See Wikipedia entries for solfege , shape notes, and a cappella for more details. The advantage of shape notes is that they provide a relative scale; the shapes do not change their relationships to other shapes in the scale even when a song is sung in a different key. This makes it easier for singers when there are no instruments to provide perfect pitch.