Deep River
Spiritual · 1800s · Traditional African American spiritual, documented in the 19th century
Sing Deep River with pitch feedback
“Deep River” is transcribed here with its tonic on C4 at 60 bpm in 4 beats to the bar. The 10 notes span A3 to C5 — 15 semitones — which rates Hard to sing, and a full 4-pass session runs about 1:04.
15 semitones as transcribed. The practice room transposes it to sit in your own range.
- One time through
- 0:16 at 60 bpm
- A full session
- 1:04 — 4 passes
- Leaps of a third or more
- 2
Deep River lyrics, as transcribed here
- Deep river, my home is over Jordan,
The songbook transcribes the opening phrase rather than the whole song, because 4 tight repetitions of a phrase you can hear yourself improve on beats one distracted run at the full thing.
Origin and copyright status
Traditional spiritual of unknown authorship; earliest printed collections date to the 1870s, long out of copyright.
- Attribution
- Traditional African American spiritual, documented in the 19th century
- Language
- English
Every melody in the songbook is public domain, which is why the whole thing can be sung in a browser without a licence. A specific recording or arrangement of the same tune can still be under copyright — this is our own transcription of the melody.
Genre, era and what it drills
Tags describe what the melody asks of a voice, not what it sounds like — “spiritual” is the reason to pick it on a given day.