April Free Sheet Music: Amazing Grace
- Apr 4, 2019
- 3 min read
A thousand apologies for my tardiness in posting my April free sheet music. March is a busy month for me- I start the month practicing Irish tunes for upcoming St. Patrick’s Day gigs, then on March 18th I get serious about doing my taxes. Then my students and I have our spring Piano and Poetry Party (a friendly, informal recital). Along with all of that March madness I spent many hours arranging Camille Saint-Saëns’ The Swan for you, my beloved blog subscribers. It was a tough challenge to represent Saint-Saëns’ many gorgeous harmonies into an easy(-ish) arrangement for solo piano. By the morning of April 1st I had the 3-page arrangement all finished except for the fingering…..when my computer crashed. I had saved the score to a thumb drive, but when I loaded Sibelius (my music notation software) onto another computer, The Swan file popped up as “corrupt file.” I tried every known fix for my crashed computer but no luck, the computer is toast. Hopefully I will be able to extract The Swan from the internal hard drive in the future, but until then, I decided to switch to working on Amazing Grace instead. (we have to roll with the punches, right?)
Have you seen the documentary about Aretha Franklin called Amazing Grace? It was filmed in 1972, but is now finally being released nationwide. In honor of the amazing Aretha, and to celebrate Earth Day, I’ve arranged Amazing Grace three ways. You can play the first version (easy), the second (intermediate), the third (advanced jazz/gospel), or play all three as a progression from simplicity to the fully colorful. If a version feels too difficult for you this year, print it anyway, and you may be able to play it next year.
(Remember, free sheet music is only available for 1 year on my website’s Free Sheet Music page. If you do not see the sheet music there, please request it in a comment below and I will email it to you ASAP)
As with of my free sheet music on the UpperHandsPiano.com website, Amazing Grace will only be posted for a year, and then I need to make room for new pieces. Look at the other sheet music and print whatever you like now, before it’s gone! If you are reading this after it has disappeared from the website link above, email me at upperhandspiano@gmail.com to send you a copy via email.
Earth Day is coming up on April 22nd, and is a time to actively protect our environment. Some people plant things, or clean up public spaces, or attend weekend festivals which educate and inspire. You can look here for ways to celebrate Earth Day 2019.
Thanks for hanging in there with me. I am learning the new version of Sibelius software with its steep learning curve, but as we all know, learning difficult things, like playing the piano, is the best way to keep our brains functioning optimally. So it’s all good 🙂
If you haven’t already, please check out my piano instruction book series called Upper Hands Piano: A Method for Adults 50+ to Spark the Mind Heart and Soul, along with my Songs of the Seasons books of seasonal favorite pieces (all available on Amazon.com).
I hope you are enjoying the first flowers of spring, wherever you are! Please leave a comment and tell us which version of Amazing Grace you are playing! Any and all comments are gratefully received. With love and music, Gail
Really liked how this post kept things simple and didn’t try to sound smarter than it needed to. I could skim it on my phone and still get the point without losing the thread. Halfway through I clicked around https://newimage.io/ out of curiosity, and it gave me the same kind of straightforward feel—no clutter, just the stuff you actually need. The pacing here is nice too, like it doesn’t dump everything in one giant wall of text. I also appreciate when pages don’t fight you with weird spacing or giant popups. On that site, the layout feels clean and the content is broken into short blocks with clear headings you can spot while scrolling.
KUWIN mình mới ghé thử vì thấy bạn bè nhắc hoài, kiểu vào xem cho biết chứ không định ngồi lâu. Giao diện nhìn khá gọn, lướt một vòng là nắm được chỗ nào là tin tức, chỗ nào là phần hướng dẫn giải đáp nên đỡ phải mò menu. Mình có đọc ké mấy dòng FAQ thấy họ nói kết quả vận hành bằng RNG chuẩn quốc tế, nghe cũng đỡ lăn tăn hơn chút. Chuyển qua lại giữa các mục không bị giật hay rối mắt, chữ nghĩa trình bày dễ đọc. Nói chung cảm giác họ sắp xếp nội dung có trật tự, không nhồi nhét. Trên trang mình thấy hai khối “TIN TỨC” và “Hướng Dẫn…
https://tylekeopro.com/ dạo này mình thấy nhiều người nhắc nên cũng bấm vào xem thử cho biết, kiểu lướt nhanh chứ không đào sâu gì. Cảm giác đầu tiên là giao diện nhìn sáng và dễ thở, không bị nhồi chữ quá nhiều nên mắt đỡ mệt. Mình thích cái cách họ chia nội dung thành từng khối rõ ràng, kéo xuống là biết mình đang ở phần nào luôn, không bị lạc. Thanh menu cũng để chỗ dễ thấy nên đổi qua lại mấy mục khá nhanh, không cần phải mò. Nói chung mình chỉ cần vậy để “làm quen” thôi, vì bố cục theo dạng khối và menu trên trang nhìn khá gọn và rõ.