Thomas Jackson Denson (right), with his brother Seaborn McDaniel Denson (left) and S. M.’s son S. Whitt Denson (center), at the Young People’s Interstate Sacred Harp Convention, Mineral Wells, Texas, 1930. T. J. Denson favored brisker tempos than those advocated by B. F. White in The Sacred Harp’s original rudiments of music. As a leading singing school teacher, his preferences precipitated an increase in tempo during (and after) his decades of influence. Photograph by George Pullen Jackson, courtesy of the grandchildren of George Pullen Jackson.