All of the tunes in the Mass of the Blessed Fire are based on Shaker tunes, some more or less directly. But, while singing the Agnus Dei (completed two years ago) this weekend at Mass, I kept thinking "this sounds overly familiar."
Did I steal this from someplace other than a Public Domain Shaker tune? It seems like I might be copping another Agnus Dei, but I can't put my finger on it.
Nope, tough to assign plagarism to pentatonic stuff. But definitely no "My Sweet Lord" at play here, do-run/do-run, do-run. But again, AW, I'd consider making "sins of the..." quarter, 8th 8th, for a couple of obvious reasons.
I don't know about the tune, Adam. I do know that if you were publishing this as part of an entire Mass ordinary and you had to seek the permissions of ICEL and the BCDW that publishers must seek, you'd be told to correct the punctuation to what is in the Roman Missal and to change "upon" to "on."
When I have time, I will update the setting's website and make it obvious what is for use in a Roman Rite Mass and what is intended for Episcopal (or other protestant) services.
(Since the Agnus Dei is optional in Episcopal rite 2 services, they're pretty loosey goosey about things like that. So I changed it to "upon" for no reason other than that I thought it sounded better with the tune. This image is from the liturgy program for the current season.)
Your tune, you da shot-caller! But channeling my inner Judy Collins, "What I'll give you since you've asked....." Now I've got a whole bunch of gray ex-hippy ladies swooning at how sensitive I am, been my M.O. from day one.
I knew y'all's gonna do that, jes' tell yer quire folk, unless'n you pree-fer it thisaway, to not stretch that "rrrrrrrr" out on "meR--------cy" too durn fur.
It's all right, Adam. If you leave the punctuation flaws in, it'll create a market niche for me to make the Punctuation-Corrected Edition of The Works of Adam Wood and keep all the profits, mwa ha ha.
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