Sarah Anna Glover

Sarah Anna Glover (13 November 1786 – 20 October 1867) was an English music educator who invented the Norwich sol-fa system. Her Sol-fa system was based on the ancient gamut; but she omitted the constant recital of the alphabetical names of each note and the arbitrary syllable indicating key relationship, and also the recital of two or more such syllables when the same note was common to as many keys (e.g. C, Fa, Ut, meaning that C is the subdominant of G and the tonic of C). The notes were represented by the initials of the seven syllables, still in use in Italy and France as their names.
Early life.
Glover was born in The Close, Norwich. She was baptised at St Mary in the Marsh on 18 November 1786. She started trying to develop a simplified system of musical notation during her twenties, when she ran a Sunday school with her younger sister, Christiana. Not much of her career is known until her late twenties.
Career.
Her father became Curate of St Laurence's Church, Norwich in 1811, which led to her taking over the music for the Church around that time. Her influence made the Church respected for its music and young women were sent to her for training. By 1827, she had developed a complete method musical notation that she was using while teaching at a girl's school she had founded. She developed her learning system to aid teachers with a cappella singing. Her 1835 instructional book "Scheme for Rendering Psalmody Congregational" met with great success. It was later refined and developed by John Curwen and others over the years. The concept became well known in popular culture after it was featured in a song from "The Sound of Music".
Glover later lived in Cromer, then Reading, then Hereford. She died of a stroke in Great Malvern and was buried there.