10,000

A couple of Sundays ago we sang a new (compared to hymns) praise song called "10,000 Reasons." That got me thinking about the number and how that shows up in other songs as well.

I went home and dug out some of my music with older music in it. I had already thought of the old faithful, Amazing Grace, that talks in the last verse about "when we've been there 10,000 years..." But I knew there were more.

Ten Thousand Angels came to mind. I dug around in my music book case and found a hymn book with it in it. But in the process also came across Ten Thousand Years. At first I didn't recognize it, but as I went over it, I realized this was a song we sang in a Baptist Church at Round Mountain, Arkansas where my husband used to preach.

They all fell together nicely. I worked on how to piece these together.  I even transposed Amazing Grace to the key the others were written in. I didn't write it out on music paper either. When I performed this song, I played it - in the transposed key - without making a mistake - or missing a note in the right key, - or trying to play 'the' note in the original key. That is a HUGE accomplishment for me. (I won't go into the details of playing a song from memory one time and freezing up. But that has had a big impact on my confidence ever since.)

Our church has an electronic piano and although I am a purist when it comes to *real* pianos (which comes from my degree in music), it will transpose and that is soooooo handy. I don't have a good soprano voice and I max out about C and D above middle C.

Last Sunday we were going to have music night - no preaching, just special music from the congregation. I had another song practiced that I had arranged. But this medley came together so easily within a couple of days. So I decided to do it instead.

With lowering the keyboard three steps and transposing Amazing Grace "to boot" it all worked out well. I sang (and played) part of the arrangement and just played other parts. I was pleased with the outcome and apparently others were as well. There were several who commented on it afterwards. But I did notice that they were all middle age and older. Some of our younger counter parts had never heard the two "old" songs that I included. But, now they have. Maybe this will get others to think where else do we hear about 10,00!