April 2012 Psalm Sing

Last Saturday, we had another psalm sing.  We've been having them more often lately; isn't that nice? :)

First, we reviewed the tune Sawley, which we also worked on in March.  The third line of the bass is tricky, so our bass singers spent some time figuring it out.  Once all of us had their part memorized, we sang the first six stanzas of Psalm 62 again.  I won't post that recording now, since it's much like the one I posted last month.

Next, we moved on to Golden Hill.  Golden Hill is a beautiful short meter tune, written down by Aaron Chapin in 1805.  The melody, they say, was inspired by the song of the wood thrush.  It's not in our psalters, so our first encounter with the tune was this recording by a young Scottish fellow.  Several of us (not just me!) quite like Golden Hill, and have been nagging politely suggesting for months that we do the tune at a psalm sing.  So we were delighted to finally sing it on Saturday.

Here's the recording for you.  The plan, last I heard, is to review this tune next month, since it is still very new to most of us.  Enjoy!

Psalm 25 v 15-22 (1st version) to Golden Hill