Traditional tune with lyrics by Nahum Tate. Arrangement
and additional lyrics by Sally DeFord.
One Christmas
as our congregation sang "While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks by Night,"
I wondered why this long-familiar carol had never been one of my favorites.
It has great words (in what other song do you get to sing "seraph" and
"forthwith" in the same line?) and the melody suits the lyrics well, but...
ho hum. As Marianne Dashwood so aptly put it, "...there is a something
wanting."
So I played
around with it, and found that it readily fell into 6/8 meter. At a quick
tempo, with a flute intro and obbligato for the last verse, it passed the
"fun" test: my husband whistled it for a week.
Heather's demo for this song is of the "don't try this at home" variety--or rather, don't try this alone. She's the soprano... and the alto. Obviously you'll need two voices for a live presentation. The harmonies she sings are adapted from the SATB score.
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