== misnomer == 

 The first section to this article, "The music and its notation" is basically a rehash of information on shape note singing, already contained in another article.  In fact, much of this article seems to be more generally about shape note singing than anything specific to the Sacred Harp.   

 It is using the expression "Sacred Harp" as a shorthand for the practice of congregational singing from oblong shapenote songbooks, a misnomer for what should properly be related to "shape note," etc.  In doing this the article perpetuates a misconception that traditions like hollow square, shape notes, congregational singing, etc., are specifically associated with the Sacred Harp, and no other songbook and obscures the larger historical context they came out of.   

 Shouldn't this article be about the songbook specifically? There is so much overlap between many of these related articles that perhaps we need to rethink, or else we are just codifying and perpetuating a an inaccurate idiom.   
 
 We could split this big amorphous subject into articles on: 

 *shape note musical notation (covering the development and use of shape notes) 
 *shape note singing (covering practice) 
 *sacred harp, the songbook (covering history, content, etc. of that specific book) 
 *southern harmony, Missouri Harmony, etc., other songbooks (individual articles, of course) 

 Other articles need to be developed to put all this in some context: 
 congregational singing 
 American folk hymns 
 what else? 

 excellent article on singing schools already exists.