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Piano sheet music for kids · Spiritual · Level 3: Notes below middle C
Swing Low, Sweet Chariot
Free beginner piano sheet music: C major, 4/4, 16 bars. 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 chorus and first verse of the spiritual. The tune is built on the five notes of the pentatonic scale, C D E G A, but it drops below middle C on “char-i-ot” (bars 2 and 6) and “see” (bar 10), where the thumb reaches down to A and G. “Com-ing for to car-ry me” is four quick quavers and then two more, so count “1 and 2 and”. The left hand plays block chords in the chorus and single crotchets, bass note then chord, under the quaver bars.
Practice tip: Sing it while you play, slowly: the words tell you where the quavers go. Let “home” ring for the whole bar before the next phrase.
The words
Swing low, sweet chariot coming for to carry me home, swing low, sweet chariot coming for to carry me home. I looked over Jordan and what did I see coming for to carry me home, a band of angels coming after me coming for to carry me home.
A short history
Swing Low, Sweet Chariot was composed by Wallace Willis, a Choctaw freedman, some time before 1862 in what is now Oklahoma. He worked at Spencer Academy, a Choctaw boarding school, and the minister there, Alexander Reid, heard him sing it. Years later Reid passed the song to the Fisk Jubilee Singers, the choir of Fisk University in Nashville, who toured America and Britain in the 1870s singing spirituals to raise money for their college. They made the first recording of it in 1909.
The words picture the chariot that carried the prophet Elijah to heaven, and the river Jordan as the last crossing.
Since 1988 it has been the song of England rugby crowds at Twickenham, and it is sung in churches and at funerals the world over.
Quick facts
- Tune
- Wallace Willis, before 1862 (American spiritual)
- Key
- C major
- Time signature
- 4/4
- Length
- 16 bars
- Tempo
- Slowly, with a swing, crotchet = 80
- Difficulty
- Level 3: Notes below middle C (piece 76 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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