Barbarous Howling, Sonic Space, and Identity: The New England Regular Singing Controversy of the 1720s

During the 1720s Boston-area ministers and their allies argued that singing in rural churches had degenerated into vulgar howling. Fearful that the howling signaled the creeping Indianization of rural New Englanders they argued for reform that would require singing by note, a proposal strenuously resisted by rural congregations.