Amazing Grace

About this arrangement

The best-known hymn in English, in C major. The tune uses only five notes, G, A, C, D and E, with the top G for “me” and “I once”; the thumb starts on the G below middle C for the pickup (“A-”), and the hand moves between there and C position, with the thumb on middle C. It is in 3/4, and “A-ma-zing”, “saved a”, “once was” and “blind, but” each end with a minim and a pair of slurred quavers. “Me” and “see” are tied across the bar line. The left hand plays a waltz bass through C, F and G.

Practice tip: Count “1 2 3” and keep the pulse slow; the quaver pairs are gentle, not hurried. Play the tied notes once and hold them for the full five beats.

The words

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me, I once was lost, but now am found, was blind, but now I see.

A short history

The words are by John Newton, who had been a sailor and the captain of slave ships before he became an Anglican priest at Olney in Buckinghamshire. He wrote “Amazing Grace” for his New Year’s Day sermon in 1773, and it was printed in 1779 in “Olney Hymns”, the collection he made with the poet William Cowper. Newton later campaigned against the slave trade.

The tune we sing, called “New Britain”, is American. It first appeared in a shape-note tunebook in 1829, and it was joined to Newton’s words in William Walker’s “Southern Harmony” in 1835. For its first sixty years the hymn was sung to other tunes.

It is a pentatonic melody, which is why it can be played on the black keys alone and why bagpipes play it so well.

Quick facts

Tune

Traditional (American tune “New Britain”, 1829)

Words

John Newton, 1779

Key

C major

Time signature

3/4

Length

16 bars and a pickup

Tempo

Slowly, crotchet = 76

Difficulty

Level 3: Notes below middle C (piece 37 of 201)

Type

Hymn

Hands

Both: melody in the right hand, chords in the left

Copyright

Public domain tune; arrangement by Digital Greenhouse, free for personal and classroom use

Questions and answers