O Music, Sweet Music

Attributed to Lowell Mason, this great round is easy to learn and a fine addition to Music In Our Schools Month. As you may know, Mason was a leading figure in American church music, the composer of over 1600 hymn tunes, many of which are often sung today. In the early part of America's music history, he helped put a special stamp on American music and music publishing with his collections of hymns and choral arrangements. He also was an important part of the "Better Music Movement" that helped formalize music education in the northeastern states.

Our arrangement is fairly simple, treating it as a 3-part round, performed three times through. On the recording, we chose to start the round immediately the first time through. You may choose to do the first time through as unison, then break into the round. Either way works just fine.

Also note that with any round, consider starting by learning the round a cappella. First sing just the song to familiarize your singers with the song, then start a seemingly endless round until they are at home with it. To help learn the basic version, we have created a unison version of the piece and put it on our web site for you to access.