Ananias Davisson

Ananias Davisson (February 2, 1780 – October 21, 1857) was a singing school teacher, printer and compiler of shape note tunebooks. He is best known for his 1816 compilation Kentucky Harmony, which is the first Southern shape-note tunebook. According to musicologist George Pullen Jackson, Davisson's compilations are "pioneer repositories of a sort of song that the rural South really liked."

Davisson was born February 2, 1780, in Shenandoah County, Virginia. His wife was named Ann (surname unknown); they had no children. In 1804 he bought land in Rockingham County, supplementing his income as a farmer by conducting singing classes in the Shenandoah Valley. He established a printing shop in Harrisonburg in 1816, and in that year published the Kentucky Harmony, the first Southern shape note tunebook. As a printer, he cultivated a network of singing school teachers and composers in Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky who sold his tunebooks and sent him their own compositions. He spent his last years living on a farm at Weyer's Cave, about 14 miles from Dayton, Virginia, and died October 21, 1857. He is buried in the Massanutten-Cross Keys Cemetery, Rockingham County, Virginia. Davisson was a member and ruling elder of the Presbyterian Church, active in the Presbytery of Winchester and the Synod of Virginia.

There are records of a printing firm in Harrisburg called Davidson and Bourne active 1812-1816; there are reasons for believing that Davidson is a variant spelling of Davisson, who obtained shape note fonts and began a separate enterprise for publishing music in 1816. The Kentucky Harmony was printed early in 1816, and the same fonts were used later in the year to publish Joseph Funk's "Allgemein nützliche Choral-Music", a Mennonite tunebook in German, so it is believed that Davisson was the printer of Funk's tune book.

The invention of shape notes in Philadelphia in 1801 had greatly enlarged the market for printed music. Even during the Davidson and Bourne days, Davisson traveled extensively to supplement his income by teaching singing schools. Sometime during 1815-1816 he acquired shape note fonts and began to print music. Following the pattern of John Wyeth, who targeted his Repository of Sacred Music (1810, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania) to Calvinists, and the Part Second of the Repository (1813) to Methodists and Baptists, Davisson targeted the Kentucky Harmony to his fellow Presbyterians, and the Supplement to the Kentucky Harmony to Methodists. However, the idea, first used in the Repository, Part Second of 1813, of collecting folk tunes, harmonizing them, and using them as vehicles for hymn texts, was followed by Davisson from the very first. In contrast, the music advocated in New England and the Midwest by the "Better Music Boys" (e.g. Lowell Mason, Thomas Hastings, and others) sought to emulate European styles, while denigrating William Billings and other composers of the First New England School. The 1816 Kentucky Harmony has no European compositions, retains the best of the New England fuging tunes, makes extensive use of regional folk tunes, and has 60% of its songs in the minor key.

A Supplement to the Kentucky Harmony (Harrisonburg, Virginia: 1820) went through three editions. It was notable for its inclusion of English, Scottish and Irish folk tunes paired with spiritual texts. It included very little New England hymnody or church hymns. Davisson specifically dedicated it to his "Methodist friends" for use in their camp meetings.

The author's principle design in offering his Supplement is, that his Methodist friends may be furnished with a suitable and proper arrangement of such pieces as may seem best to animate a zealous Christian in his acts of devotion; and while they sing with the spirit, let them learn to sing with the understanding also.

The folk tunes themselves would have been familiar to the participants, making it easier to pair the religious texts. This was at a time when the Methodists were a much smaller, out of the mainstream religion.

Other books published by Davisson were Introduction to Sacred Music, Extracted from the Kentucky Harmony and Chiefly Intended for the Benefit of Young Scholars, (Harrisonburg, Virginia: 1821), and A Small Collection of Sacred Music (Harrisonburg, Virginia: 1825).