Atlanta - More than 700 singers convened in Atlanta this month to celebrate the latest edition of the songbook at the heart of one of the country's oldest Christian music traditions.

The Sacred Harp , first published in 1844, contains hymns and anthems written with "shape notes," designed to aid sight reading. Unlike in standard music notation, each note is a triangle, a circle, a square or a diamond. Each shape stands for a syllable, fa, sol, la or mi, and each syllable corresponds with different pitches.

Lucy Grindon /

The convention was the largest Sacred Harp singing in living memory and culminated seven years of work to revise the book. Hundreds traveled long distances to sing the 113 new songs.

"It's the only time in most of our lifetimes that we're going to see a gathering like

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