Tom Shepherd on a comment on singing in tongues on the facebook Liturgy page drew attention to the above video clip of the well-known SDA minister, Wintley Phipps, highlighting the place of the pentatonic scale. If you missed the pentatonic scale video on the singing in tongues post, it is worth going back and seeing that also (I’d like to think every post here is worth seeing 🙂 )
Isn’t it truly amazing how when someone sings with their heart it runs chills up and down your spine.
Never has it been done with more feeling!
I knew the tune New Britain (Amazing Grace) was in a pentatonic scale, but never knew the part about “negro scale.”
The part about this video that is wrong is that New Britain was not the first tune used for Amazing Grace. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazing_grace#.22New_Britain.22
That was amazing, gave me the shivers.
As an example of another tune, here is Amazing Grace sung to the tune Jewett. http://www.swift.fm/rrchapman/song/17477/
I do not know if Jewett is older or younger than New Britain.
I found: http://www.greghowlett.com/blog/thoughts/121009.aspx which shows Rev Phipps does not accurately portray the history of Amazing Grace. This is presented in a balanced way and does give credit to the scale and history of african american spiritual songs.