If
you ask nearly anyone, they will be able to recognize and sing (at least a
little bit) the familiar Christmas song, Jingle Bells. However, the tune that
they sing is NOTHING like the original.
The
original song was written in 1857 by my 3rd cousin (five times
removed), James Lord Pierpont. James lived from 1822 to 1893 and wrote a number
of songs. However, Jingle Bells is probably the only one that people have heard
of. The original song was titled, “One Horse Open Sleigh” and had not only a
much more complicated tune, but slightly different words. (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jingle_Bells
for the complete story).
Here
is a link to the original score. (http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=sm1820&fileName=sm2/sm1857/620000/620520/mussm620520.db&recNum=0&itemLink=r?ammem/mussm:@filreq(@field(NUMBER+@band(sm1857+620520))+@field(COLLID+sm1820))&linkText=0).
You
can see beginning on page 3 the different tune of the chorus. Instead of
starting out with seven consecutive notes the same, and several other strings
of the same notes in a row, the original tune is much more complicated.
Here
is a link to the music itself. (http://www.stephen-foster-songs.de/MP3/amsong24.mp3).
And if you like a much more jazzed up version, here is one for a player piano (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2KU7QxkKPM&feature=related).
I
hope you enjoy this little bit of history into a song that was written by one
of my relatives.
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