Description
‘Amazing Grace’, as it is most widely-known today, was first printed as an American shape-note hymn in William Walker’s Southern Harmony, with the title NEW BRITAIN. The setting offered here is an adaptation of the original shape-note hymn, and typeset in the pipe-friendly key of D-Major. This version includes chord symbols, the lyrics to the first verse, and a harmony part based upon the traditional shape-note harmony. (A version nearly identical to this also appears in ‘An Appalachian Collection’.)
[For a lively slip-jig arrangement of this melody, please see here.]
An audio sample, featuring Scottish smallpipes (D-chanter). The harmony part can be heard on the repeat, approximately halfway through the track:
A video of the original shape-note hymn being sung. This is the version that this pipe-setting is based upon: