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Piano sheet music for kids · Spiritual · Level 6: Moving on
Go Down, Moses
Free beginner piano sheet music: A minor, 4/4, 16 bars and a pickup. Press Play to hear it on a real piano, slow it down, or hear one hand at a time; click any note to start from there; print it for the music stand.
About this arrangement
The spiritual of the Exodus, with the verse “When Is-rael was in E-gypt’s land” and the chorus “Go down, Mo-ses”. It is in A minor, and the G sharp, a black key, comes every time on “peo-ple”, pulling up to A on “go”. The verse is calm and low, starting on the E above middle C. The chorus climbs to the E an octave higher and has long notes tied across the beat, so the hand moves up for it and back down at the end. The left hand plays a bass note and a chord, A minor, D minor, F and E.
Practice tip: Play the verse quietly and steadily, then make the chorus strong, like a command. Hold the tied notes for their full length before you go on.
The words
When Israel was in Egypt's land, Let my people go. Oppressed so hard they could not stand, Let my people go. Go down, Moses, Way down in Egypt's land, Tell old Pha raoh, to let my people go.
A short history
“Go Down, Moses” is an African-American spiritual about the Hebrews held as slaves in Egypt and God’s command to Moses, “Let my people go”. For enslaved people in America the story was their own, and it carried a hope of freedom. Harriet Tubman, who led many people out of slavery, said she used it as a signal song.
It was the first spiritual known to be printed as sheet music. A chaplain, Lewis Lockwood, heard it sung by people who had escaped to the Union army at Fort Monroe in Virginia in 1861 and printed the words that year, and in 1862 it was published as sheet music, “Oh! Let My People Go: The Song of the Contrabands”. The Fisk Jubilee Singers of Nashville printed it in 1872, with the words used here, and sang it on their tours of America and Britain.
It has been recorded many times since, by Paul Robeson and Louis Armstrong among many others.
Quick facts
- Tune
- Traditional (African-American spiritual, words printed 1861)
- Key
- A minor
- Time signature
- 4/4
- Length
- 16 bars and a pickup
- Tempo
- Steadily, crotchet = 80
- Difficulty
- Level 6: Moving on (piece 176 of 201)
- Type
- Spiritual
- 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
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