Africa (William Billings) - Music

Music

Version of 1778.

Click to hear piano reduction (Ogg format, 250K)

Musically, the work is notable for the parallel descending thirds and sixths that shift from part to part. Some renditions of this hymn (for example, the practice of Sacred Harp singer) follow a practice recommended by Billings himself and include male singers on the treble, singing an octave down, as well as female singers on the tenor part, singing an octave higher.

Read more about this topic:  Africa (William Billings)

Famous quotes containing the word music:

    If mass communications blend together harmoniously, and often unnoticeably, art, politics, religion, and philosophy with commercials, they bring these realms of culture to their common denominator—the commodity form. The music of the soul is also the music of salesmanship. Exchange value, not truth value, counts.
    Herbert Marcuse (1898–1979)

    Your remark that clams will lie quiet if music be played to them, was superfluous—entirely superfluous.
    Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)

    Since a man must bring
    To music what his mother spanked him for
    When he was two ...
    Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917)