The Shakers composed thousands of songs and created many dances. Their musical styles range from meditative and contemplative to upbeat and joyous. The Shakers considered it important to record musical inspirations as they occurred and many of the songs in this collection were transcribed directly from their original 19th century documents. There are 2 versions of each song. For beginning Native American flute players, the music is in both Nakai tablature and fingering diagrams, making the music accessible to those who cannot read music or who are new to the flute. More advanced players and players of other instruments will want to use the standard notation version which does not contain the fingering diagrams.The melodies have been arranged to stay within the melodic range of the flute and are playable by most treble instruments.