Five Variations on the "Just As I Am" Theme

I recently came to discover a YouTube channel that is called "Traditional Hymns" where the purveyor, a Mr. Elliot Bowman, has videos of some of the hymns we commonly sing in worship (whether you use Sacred Selections, Songs of the Church [sometimes better known as "The Blue Book"!], or the one we've been using for a couple of decades where I worship, Praise for the Lord).  The soundtracks are him singing all four a Capella parts while the video is of the words and music of the hymn displayed in Paperless Hymnal format.  I see this as an almost ideal way to teach and learn some of the hymns in our books, whether they be new ones, classic hymns that are "new-to-us", or classic hymns we may have been singing incorrectly; and it turns out that THAT was his original purpose in producing these videos.  I have to admit I had wanted to do something like this for some time but didn't have the time or equipment to do so, and am glad this man managed to do what I could not!

Not so long ago I found a video of his for "Just As I Am".  It's an older one of his but, then again, I only recently discovered this and still have quite a bit of the 108 videos to go through (as of the time of this writing).  I was intrigued by this video because normally Mr. Bowman follows the music rather strictly as it is written.  In this instance, during the final verse, he introduced a wee bit of improv from the tenor line.  If you listen to the video, when he sings "Now to be Thine, yea, Thine alone," when the tenor part sings "Thine, yea," the notes are written as B-flat and E-flat respectively (or "sol" and "do" if you do solfage/phonetics like I do); in his tenor improvisation, both notes are D-flat (a half-step below "ti"), thus creating a dominant-seventh or major-minor-seventh chord!

If you go to this song on YouTube, you can follow the conversation I had with Mr. Bowman about this improv.  He seemed grateful that I noticed the 7th and, interestingly enough, warned me not to make it a Major-7th if I try to sing this in worship!

Of course, THAT got me to thinking about some different variations on the "Bowman Improv", some of which he and I discussed further (he claims to have tried it on his keyboard...and cringed!), and I came up with the following:

(You MAY need to download each file to listen to them unless your browser has the right apps to play these midi files.)

• "Just As I Am": this is the original arrangement of the song.
• "Just As I Am_Bowman Improv": this arrangement incorporates the Bowman Improv that I discussed earlier, singing "D-flat - D-flat" for "Thine, yea", producing the Major-Minor-Seventh chord.
• "Just As I Am_variation 1 of Bowman Improv": this arrangement substitutes Major-Sevenths (both D-natural, or "ti") for "Thine, yea".
• "Just As I Am_variation 2 of Bowman Improv": this arrangement only inserts ONE Major-Seventh for the lyric "Thine", returning the "yea" lyric to it's original E-flat (or "do").
• "Just As I Am_variation 3 of Bowman Improv": in both of the previous examples, by introducing a Major-7th into the mix, one hints towards a G-minor chord which combines some elements of the E-flat- and B-flat-major chords (although in the second example, it quickly shifts back to the E-flat-major or tonic chord).  In this third arrangement, the bass gets involved in some changes as well.  With the original music, the bass line remains on E-flat ("do") throughout the lyrics "Now to be Thine, yea'...".  Here, however, the lyric "be" is split up into an E-flat and F ("do" - "re") to help the bass shift to sing G ("mi") for the "Thine" lyric.  As the tenor is singing D-natural ("ti") on "Thine", a G-minor chord is no longer hinted, it's there.  Even though it is a minor chord, it seems to lend a slightly happier, more joyful sound referring to the state of now "be[-ing] Thine, yea, Thine alone[!]".  Of course, with the lyric "yea", everything shifts back to the original arrangement, returning to the E-flat-major or tonic chord.
• "Just As I Am_with 4 Tenor Adjustments": this combines ALL FIVE of these files into one long music file, played in the order listed here.

 All of these were created using the Finale(TM) Notepad music transcription program which can also make midi sound files.


 --Andy (bas4d)