New Arrangement - Amazing Grace

A friend from Virginia sent me a text asking if I knew of an arrangement of Amazing Grace. She had to play for a funeral and the family had requested Amazing Grace. I didn’t have any arrangements to suggest. So, I decided to work on one. It needed to be simple and straight forward, but a little bit more complex than just playing out of the hymn book. Because sometimes it’s just too hard to sing at a funeral, the family will have just instrumental music. I wanted the arrangement to be fairly simple so that people could hum or sing along if they wanted to.

Irish Tune

This summer, I’ve been having students do sight reading out of Craig Duncan’s Beautiful Airs and Ballads of the British Isles. I adapted the tune called “Pretty Girl Milking Her Cow” and incorporated it as a little motif that weaves the stanzas together. The tune is in E minor and in 3/4 so it fit easily in with Amazing Grace. A broken chord accompaniment supports the violin melody throughout.

Pretty Girl Milking Her Cow – Craig Duncan

Techniques

It is set in the key of G, and then modulates up to the key of A. It opens with the violin playing double stops. These are open string double stops using the G string as a drone. I wrote in a fingering that uses 1st and 3rd position throughout the key of G. I choose the fingering thinking of the timbre as well as ease of shifts. Once we modulate to the key of A for the final stanza, there is 1 section in 4th position. Rather than extending the 4th finger up for a harmonic, I have the player shift into 4th position. This will keep the tone strong and clear.

The bow stroke used through the whole piece is legato detaché. You will find that there are some measures that have all the notes slurred. They also incorporate a string crossing. If this is hard for the player or student, than you can break the slur. I would recommend slurring the two notes after the string crossing. Over all this is a Level 4 arrangement with a little bit of 4th position.