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Praise, my soul, the King of heaven

Posted on February 27th, 2005, in the afternoon

This is such a great hymn, but quite hard to pull off on the guitar unless you practise it properly (there's no easy simplification of the chords). I've been meditating with it all week and have learnt the words and chords by heart, so was able to use it fluently at church this morning. Learning hymns by heart makes such a difference to how well I can use them. Without the words and chords in me I find I'm as much battling to get the the hymn right as leading worship with it.

The one addition I made was to add a four chord tag both as an intro and between verses. I play the hymn in C (most books have it in D, but it's fairly high in D); the tag I used is C G/B Am F twice-through with emphasis in the strum as if the syllables of the first line (two syllables per chord). Using that tag (rather than pausing between verses) makes it much easier to run in with other songs. This morning I ran straight from 'Praise, my soul' into the chorus of 'Faithful One' (in C), which worked very well both musically and in theme.

There are a whole range of different versions of the words, including several extra verses. I've learnt what I think is the original version, and just four verses.

In terms of arrangement it works beautifully dropping almost to voices for the third verse ("Father-like he tends and spares us"), building for "Praise Him! Praise Him!" then right up for the final verse ("Angels, help us to adore Him").