History of Amazing Grace told by Wintley Phipps

no black lady in Alabama this star she said to me one day she said did you know that just about all Negro spirituals are written on the black notes of the piano you look skeptical so I brought a camera and a piano to prove to you what I'm talking about you can go home tonight and play almost any Negro spiritual if you just play the black notes on the pen what there are five black notes on the piano and you can play any Negro spiritual just play those notes what you know that every time man come on you remember you learned that in school how about this one that's cause the slaves didn't come to America with doremi by Solari that that's somebody else's scale okay all they had in their musical scale were those five notes we know it in music as the pentatonic scale and they built the power and pathos of the Negro spiritual or five notes when you study music you also come across what are known as white spirituals yes and they often white composers who would work with this scale they used to call Negro spirituals slave songs and many call this scale the slave scale and I'm going to play for you what some musicologists think is the most famous white spiritual built on the slave scale or just the black notes you you you you you anybody know who wrote that song thank you a man by the name of John Newton but do you know what John Newton did before he became a Christian he was the captain of a slave ship and many believed heard this melody that sounds very much like a West African sorrow chant and wrote the words Amazing Grace and set his words to a slave melody I believe that song was written just the way it's supposed to been written so that we would be reminded the whether black or white we all in this together we really are and I went to the library Congress I looked at that song and wherever you see it authentically printed you know what it says words John Newton melody unknown do you know how many people's lives have been changed by that song by someone named unknown who had the gene the HP LPG I'm gonna close by sharing this song with you by the way somebody put it up on YouTube and it is now the most-watched inspirational video of any kind by inspirational artist I sing the first verse I imagined the way John Newton probably first heard it coming up out of the belly of a slave ship Hey Hey Hey you you mmm Amazing Grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me I was but now I'm found was blind but now I see

Channel: Tonya Rosetta

Views: 240,909

Keywords: Wintley Phipps (Composer), Amazing, Grace, History

Id: FPMbiEkLK7E

Length: 6min 58sec (418 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 24 2014