Amazing Grace

To a lot of people, the sound of the drones (the 3 upright pipes on the bagpipe) represents eternity. That’s how the piece starts, with bagpipe drones - in the eternities, before we were born, when we were with God. God is unchanging. The drones on the bagpipes stay at one constant pitch (Bb), and the melody stays in one constant key signature (the key of Eb major). Perfect octaves (between the drones of the bagpipes) and perfect fourths/fifths (between the drones and the key of the melody) sound pure and in tune. But we can’t metaphorically play in God’s key yet. We have to progress - hence the upward progression of key signatures in the piece.

The pipes cut out, and the strings continue the drone. The strings feel more like our home on this earth - it’s something we’re familiar with, but with a connection to heaven. In my mind, the chimes symbolically represent Christ’s grace. They sound like the drones, but they’re shorter - because Jesus became mortal for our sake. The soloist sings in the original key of Eb. To me this feels like the peaceful Garden of Eden stage. Before anything ever happened with Adam and Eve, God had a plan to save them. They made a hard decision in that Garden, but they trusted in Jesus. 

“Through many dangers, toils, and snares …” is in a new key, G major, a major third above the original key of Eb. At this point, we’re still singing the melody of trusting in Christ, but the Fall has happened, we’re in mortality now, and we’re in a different key from God. Major thirds are not nearly as harmonically stable as perfect octaves or perfect fifths. But the key of G is a happy sounding key. There’s still happiness and hope even after the Fall. 

“The Lord has promised good to me . . .” is the pastoral verse, or the Good Shepherd verse. We’re still not in the home key of Bb yet - we’re still in G - but we’re with the Shepherd, our shield, so we can feel safe and at peace. 

“Yea, when this flesh and heart shall fail, and mortal life shall cease . . .” is when the terrifying effects of the Fall really kick in. We’re in the key of A, which is LITERALLY as far away as you can get from the original key of Eb. In fact, the interval from Eb to A (called the tritone) was actually forbidden in early Christian music because it was believed to be evil. It is as dissonant as you can get. The snare drum here represents death. It sounds like what you would hear before an execution. All of us, if it weren’t for mercy and grace, would be condemned to spiritual death. The bass drum is like a mortal heartbeat: pounding, nervous, anxious… but maybe, in part, anxious for something good, hopeful. The heartbeat does end, but that’s not the end. 

Although there is death and fear, there is also hope because of Christ’s Amazing Grace. There are drones all through this verse, symbolizing Christ’s grace. Instead of the original Bb drones, they’re in the key of A, where we are - Christ came voluntarily to where we are, in death and anxiety, in the mess, in the trenches, in our secret vulnerable places that we can’t bear for anyone else to see, in the very worst parts of our mortality. I wonder if that’s what grace really is - being willing to put yourself in someone else’s shoes, so that then you can know how to help them instead of condemning them. He did that for us, because He loves each one of us - even where we are. 

“When we've been there ten thousand years, bright shining as the sun . . .” is absolutely full of joy and praise. This is definitely the heaven verse. I think this part is singing about the future – we’re not actually home yet, but we’re feeling so much joy about what we know is coming. At this point, we’re in the key of Bb major - a perfect 5th, or 7 half steps, away from Eb. Musically, that’s as close to perfection as you can get without being in the original key. 

The echoes of “Amazing Grace” are still in the key of Bb, but the echoes of “I once was lost” are back in the key of G, back where we were when the Fall happened musically. This makes the key/tonal center very disorienting - we are still lost. The Fall is still real. But Jesus is also still real. We don’t stand a chance without Him. Then the chimes come back in on the original Eb, again representing His grace - something we can musically and spiritually grab onto, like Peter did when he started to sink. The Eb that the chimes play is the only way the choir can come back in on the right note. We were all lost, but now, by grace, we are found and led back home into the key of Eb, back into the presence of God after experiencing the growth and progression we needed to experience - “now grace will lead me home.” The strings and bagpipes come in, again at home in the original key of Eb, ending the piece with the same sense of eternity with which it began.

This progression of key changes was not my original plan. But, as so often happens, my plan didn’t work out. The way things did naturally work out, I feel that the key changes actually represent the Plan of Salvation pretty much perfectly. I couldn’t have planned this by myself, but I was so excited when I realized what was naturally happening. I think it’s so, so cool that it worked out that way!

Emily Higinbotham