It’s been a Chapel-filled week here on the blog, so I’m dashing off this quick Lazy Sunday before dashing off to play bass at church:
Happy Sunday!
—TPP
I was working on an alto saxophone arrangement of the hymn “Softly and Tenderly” by Will L. Thompson last week, as I am planning on playing it for Chapel this week at school. I’ve always liked the hymn, and I recently attempted it on sax for a Sunday night singing at my old church. While playing it, I realized I was unclear one some of the notes in the melody, so there was a chunk where I was kind of adlibbing my way through.
That being the case, I thought it would be worthwhile to have a version for alto sax as sheet music. This arrangement is really more of a transcription; that is, I attempted to put on paper what I play when I am noodling the hymn on sax. I tried to replicate the various ornamentations that I add on when I play.
Once I had the transcription I wanted, I didn’t grab my alto sax right away. Instead, I grabbed my bass! I played bass with our new church’s praise band for the first time this past Sunday, and I needed to practice some of the pieces for service. Since I had the bass out anyway, I decided to play the alto sax arrangement on the bass!
The result is the feature of today’s post. The typical key for “Softly and Tenderly” is concert Ab major. That puts it in the key of F major for an alto saxophone (for transposing reasons I won’t explain here, because while I think it’s cool, it’s also kind of tedious and boring). So, by playing on the bass (which I think of a concert-pitch instrument, but which technically transposes everything down one octave), I was shifting the key to concert F major (meaning if I played it with a pianist, the pianist would have to play in F major, not Ab major).
See? Kind of tedious. The bass rendition, however, is not:
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Way back in January I featured the missionary hymn “From Greenland’s Icy Mountains” as part of “Open Mic Adventures CXV: ‘From Greenland’s Icy Mountains’” as a jingoistic tribute to the then-recent inauguration of President Trump, who had designs on annexing Greenland. Instead of singing the piece—a very old missionary tune by composer Lowell Mason, with words by Reginald Heber—I played it a few times as a bit of instrumental prelude music.
There this obscure piece of music sat until my September, when my pastor had the idea to pull out some lesser-known hymns for our church to sing during our fall revival services. My pastor shares something of my absurdist sense of humor, so when he stumbled upon “From Greenland’s Icy Mountains,” he half-jokingly proposed we sing it one night as our congregational piece. I enthusiastically agreed to play it, and so it became reality.
I took the opportunity to record a little bit of it and upload it to YouTube. Below is the church’s valiant attempt at singing a song that virtually no one in the congregation knew:
At this year’s Christmas Concert, the program accidentally included the lyrics to “Joy to the World.” In the past, my students have played it as a singalong for the audience, but we haven’t done so in a few years. I’m not sure why the lyrics got included in the program, but I briefly contemplated “winging it” and shouting the chords at my students while everyone sang.
I did not give into that temptation. One that I have learned is that other people’s errors do not necessitate me fixing them in haphazard ways (usually). We simply announced there was a mistake in the program and went on from there.
That said, the larger mistake was, indeed, mine—I should have put it in the Christmas Concert! I love “Joy to the World,” and it’s really fun to play and sing. I suppose next year I’ll have to toss it into the mix.
With that, here is 12 December 2024’s “TBT^2: Joy to the World“:
The Sunday before the Inauguration I cheekily proposed to my pastor and our deacon that we should sing “From Greenland’s Icy Mountains” for our morning congregational hymn in honor of Trump’s then-upcoming Inauguration. I had practiced the piece a bit Saturday evening, but with a pretty gnarly bout of sinus drainage, I found the high notes hard to hit.
Instead of singing the piece—a very old missionary tune by composer Lowell Mason, with words by Reginald Heber—either on my own or in church, I played it a few times as a bit of instrumental prelude music.
The melody for the piece is interesting, with a few suspensions and some unusual timing, like the long half-note pickup at the beginning and midway through the piece.
Tomorrow my students have their annual Christmas concert. Neither of my Ensembles are performing “Joy to the World” this year, but it remains one of my favorites. I love its rollicking and robust melody, which seems to charge forth, first with that delicious downward D major scale, and then it’s jaunty, bouncy return back up the scale in leaps.
I’ll have to dust this one off for next year’s concert, and I will certainly be playing it at church (if I have not already done so by the time this post publishes). It’s one of the best to belt out with a room full of people.
With that, here is 14 December 2023’s “TBT: Joy to the World“:
Yours portly has a rather toothsome edition of Phone it in Friday/YouTube Roundup for you today. No Murphy vids, sadly (but don’t worry—the old girl is doing well and will be back in more videos soon), but we’ll ease into Friday with a beautiful hymn and a bit of bachelor cuisine.
Somehow, I have not reblogged my 2019 post about “Joy to the World,” one of my favorite Christmas carols, in four years!
I’ve always loved the bouncy, joyful nature of this piece, and I almost always program it for our annual Christmas Concert. Indeed, this year my Middle School Music Ensemble students performed it. While we’re working on the piece, I always give my students a little speech to try to get them into the spirit of the piece. Essentially, I tell them to imagine what it would have been like to be a shepherd on that starlit night, and for a heavenly host of infinite singing angels to burst suddenly into the sky, belting out “For Unto Us a Child Is Born!”
Our goal, I tell my students, is to capture some fraction of the overawing joy and majesty of that moment when we perform “Joy to the World.”
With that, here is 10 December 2019’s “Joy to the World“:
My students have their big Christmas concert tomorrow, and while we’re not performing “O Little Town of Bethlehem” on this year’s program, there’s quite a bit of pressure to get everything sounding and looking good! Like most folks, I don’t like stress, but it’s amazing how it forces us to get stuff done—and to make it even better!
The story of “O Little Town of Bethlehem” is relatable to songwriters, but I think speaks to all of us who have had to create or complete something with a ticking clock and high expectations. “It takes pressure to create diamonds,” they say, and the frantic, last-minute composition of “O Little Town of Bethlehem” is a testament to that principle.
With that, here is 15 December 2022’s “TBT^4: O Little Town of Bethlehem and the Pressures of Songwriting“:
I’m dipping back into the hymnal for this week’s Open Mic Adventure, from the same Sunday service as last week’s installment. This week, I’m featuring a short video of the hymn “‘Tis So Sweet To Trust in Jesus,” written by Louisa M. R. Stead and set to the tune “Trust in Jesus” by William J. Kirkpatrick.
