O God our help in ages past...

Imperial

New member
I need the sheet music of this popular hymn tune. The tune is called West Wells. The Refrain is sung to - Before the hills in other stood... and the melody goes like this:
|m:-:d:s|l:-:r:d|d:-:t:-|d:-:-:m|r:t:s:d|t:-:l:-|s:-:-:-|r:-:d:t|d:-:r:m|f:-:m:-|r:-:-:r|s:m:r:f|m:-:r:-|d:-:-:-||

Please can someone help.

God bless
 

Krummhorn

Administrator
Staff member
ADMINISTRATOR
I'm having difficulty trying to read your "melody" ... I've not seen those designations for sung notes before.

Afaik, there is no hymn tune "West Wells", at least in none of my numerous sources. The lyrics Before the hills in other [sic] stood is the hymn tune "St. Anne" - there is no "refrain" ... St. Anne is a straight hymn with multiple verses to the best of my knowledge. Perhaps there is a new version I've not heard of before - always ready to learn something new.

St. Anne tune is freely available and is in the public domain. I've attached a PDF of that below:

View attachment St. Anne.pdf

Hope this helps out a little.
 

Imperial

New member
Hi Krummhorm, many tnx for your reply. I feel very honoured. I am very sure of what I am saying as I know most tune to "O God our help in ages past". I sang to this tune (West Wells or something like that) in 1993 while in the University but cant lay hold of the copy anymore. It is a very interested tune and one of my very best. It has 4 verses and the refrain is sung to... "Before the hills in other stood..." Please someone should help:cry:. Tnx and God bless
 

Imperial

New member
Friends, the tune WEST WELLS was arranged by Fred W. Peace and sung to O God our help in ages past and the melody goes like this...|m:-:d:s|l:-:r:d|d:-:t:-|d:-:-:m|r:t:s:d|t:-:l:-|s:-:-:-|r:-:d:t|d:-:r:m|f:-:m:-|r:-:-:r|s:m:r:f|m:-:r:-|d:-:-:-||
 

Krummhorn

Administrator
Staff member
ADMINISTRATOR
Again, we are all having great difficulty trying to read your "melody" ... I've not seen those designations for sung notes before.
 

Strunch

New member
Is this supposed to be a variant of IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet)? I don't get it either, but I'm surely not an expert on IPA. But as far as I'm concerned, then IPA doesn't construct melodies, but sounds which might connect to a melody. However, the melody doesn't make any sense in an IPA context. I might be off the record here, but a given M or O sound, doesn't construct a melody, it constructs a sound of any given note? And blimey if I'm gonna par it with st. Anne by my own devices, hehe. Sing it and make an mp3 or something?
 
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Dorsetmike

Member
Looks to me like an abbreviated version of tonic Sol-Fa just using the initial letters of doh ray me fah soh lah te doh, it appears to be divided into 4 beat measures, the - to me indicates a tied note, the undescore I would interpret as either a lower octave or indicating that a word extends over 2 notes; actually I have a vague recollection that an octave higher has ' after the note, an octave lower has , after the note

try in key of C

|e:-:c:g|a:-:d:c|c:-:b:-|c:-:-:e| and so on

|minim:crotchet:crotchet|minim:crotchet:crotchet|minim:minim |dotted minim:crotchet| and so on

Not done any sol-fa since I was in school over 70 years ago. It seems obvious to me though, all the letters representing a scale are there (doh through te) so what else could it be?
 
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