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About Numbered Notation

All steps
  1. The numbers are the notes of a scale
  2. “1=C” tells you where to start
  3. Dots make a note higher or lower
  4. How long each note lasts
  5. 0 means rest
  6. Bar lines and the time signature
  7. Curves: ties and slurs
  8. The words sit under the numbers
  9. Repeat signs and 1. 2. endings
  10. Minor keys: “6=A”
  11. Put it together: a line of a hymn
  12. Check yourself
  13. Try it on a hymn

The numbers are the notes of a scale

Numbered notation (jianpu, 简谱) writes a melody as numbers instead of notes on a staff. You do not need to read music: take one small step at a time and press Play on any example to hear it while each number lights up. Sound only starts when you press Play.

Instead of notes on a staff, each note is a number from 1 to 7. They are the seven steps of the scale you already know: do re mi fa sol la ti. After 7 the scale starts again at 1.

The seven numbers with their names. Press Play and say each name as its number lights up.
Sing along: do re mi fa sol, and back down to do.

If you can sing do re mi, you can already sing every number from 1 to 7. Tap or click any number to hear just that note.

“1=C” tells you where to start

At the top left of the sheet you will see something like 1=C. It means the number 1 (do) is the note C, and every other number counts up from there. 1=G means do is G, so the whole tune sits a little higher. Nothing else changes: the same numbers make the same shape, only higher or lower.

1=C: do is C.
1=G: the same numbers, starting higher.

Not sure where C is? On a piano it is the white key just left of the two black keys. Or ignore the letter and start on any note that is comfortable for your voice: the tune only has to keep its shape. The − and + key buttons on a hymn page shift the key for you.

Dots make a note higher or lower

A dot above a number means one octave higher. A dot below means one octave lower. Two dots mean two octaves. No dot is the middle range, where most of a tune lives. The name stays the same; only the height changes.

The same number at three heights: dot below, no dot, dot above.
A tune that climbs: it starts on a low sol and ends on a high do.

How long each note lasts

Tap your foot at a steady pace: each tap is a beat. A plain number lasts one beat, so you sing a new number on every tap. Dashes, lines and dots change that.

A plain number is one beat

Four numbers, four beats: one number for each tap.

A dash holds the note longer

Each dash adds one beat. The 5 lasts two beats and the 3 lasts four.

A line underneath makes it shorter

One line is half a beat, so two underlined numbers share one beat. (Two lines are a quarter of a beat.)

A dot after makes it half as long again

A dot after a number adds half its length. The first 5 lasts a beat and a half, and the short 3 fills the rest of the second beat.

0 means rest

A 0 is silence for one beat. Keep counting and keep tapping, but do not sing. Dashes after a 0 make the silence longer, just as they hold a note longer.

Sing 1 3 5, stay quiet for one beat, then come back down. Rests light up too, so you can feel the pause.

Bar lines and the time signature

Tall lines cut the music into bars, each holding the same number of beats. The two small numbers at the start, like 4/4 or 3/4, say how many: 4/4 is four beats in every bar, 3/4 is three. The first beat of each bar is the strongest, so lean on it a little. A double line with a thick edge marks the end.

4/4: count 1 2 3 4, 1 2 3 4. The first beat of each bar sounds a little louder.
3/4: count 1 2 3, 1 2 3, the lilt of a waltz.

Curves: ties and slurs

A curve over numbers joins them. If it joins two of the same number, it is a tie: sing the note once and hold it for both. If it joins different numbers, it is a slur: sing them all on one syllable, gliding from one to the next.

A tie: the 5 is sung once and held across the bar line, six beats in all.
A slur: “Him” is sung on two notes, 3 then 2.

The words sit under the numbers

Each number gets one syllable, written right underneath it. A short dash after part of a word means the word carries on under the next number. If a number has nothing under it, it belongs to a curve or a dash: keep singing the syllable you are on.

Read left to right, one syllable for each number: Twin-kle, twin-kle, lit-tle star.

Repeat signs and 1. 2. endings

A bar line with two dots, :|, means go back and sing that part again, from the matching |: sign (or from the start if there is none). Sometimes the repeat has two endings. Sing ending 1. the first time; on the repeat, skip it and sing ending 2. instead.

Play it: you hear the 1. ending, the repeat, then the 2. ending. Watch the highlight jump back.

Minor keys: “6=A”

A song in a minor key, which usually sounds more serious or tender, is labeled like 6=A instead of 1=C. It means the number 6 (la) is the home note, here A. The numbers keep their usual names; the tune simply feels at home on 6 and often ends there. 6=A uses the same notes as 1=C.

It starts and ends on 6 (la), the home note. Listen to the darker colour.

Put it together: a line of a hymn

This is the first line of hymn 8, “Praise God, from whom all blessings flow”, written in numbered notation. Try the slow tempo first, and sing the words as each number lights up.

1=G in 4/4. Three silent beats, then “Praise” on beat 4. The dots under 7, 6 and 5 mean those notes dip one octave lower.

Check yourself

Four quick questions, with no score and no pressure. Tap an answer to see right away why it is right or wrong. You can always try another answer.

Tap the number that is held the longest.

Tap the 5 that is one octave higher than the first 5.

What does a 0 mean?

Under 1=G, which note is the number 1?

Try it on a hymn

You opened this from a hymn that has a Numbered view, so you can try it right now.

  1. Look at the top left of the sheet: the key, such as 1=D, and the time signature, such as 3/4.
  2. Find the first number and sing it. Then follow the numbers from left to right with the words underneath, one syllable for each number. Press Play in the player to hear the recording while you follow.
  3. Letters above the numbers (C, G7) are chords for a guitarist or pianist. Ignore them while you learn the tune.
  4. To be guided, open the Learn tab and press Play. Under Display, set Learn notation to Numbered (or choose Numbered on the Lead Sheet tab first). For hymns that have numbered lines, each line of numbers scrolls into view in time with the recording while a bouncing ball follows the words; other hymns show the piano notation there. The Speed menu slows it down.

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Father, Thy name our souls would bless

Worship of the Father His Grace in Sonship

English47
1
Father, Thy name our souls would bless,
As children taught by grace,
Lift up our hearts in righteousness,
And joy before Thy face.
2
Sweet is the confidence Thou giv’st,
Though high above our praise;
Our hearts resort to where Thou liv’st
In heaven’s unclouded rays.
3
Eternal ages shall declare
The riches of Thy grace,
To those who with Thy Son shall share
A son’s eternal place.
4
Absent as yet, we rest in hope,
Treading the desert path,
Waiting for Him who takes us up
Beyond the pow’r of death.
5
We joy in Thee, Thy fullness shall
Our endless portion be,
Like Thine own Son, with whom we’ll dwell
In bright eternity.
6
O Holy Father, keep us here
In that blest name of love,
Walking before Thee without fear,
Thy perfect will to prove.

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Ana Lara

Storrs, Connecticut, United States

Mar 9, 2022

John Nelson Darby was born in 1800, 100 years after the birth of Count Zinzendorf. He studied at Trinity College, Dublin between the ages of 15 and 19. Darby was an outstanding student, gaining many honors and capturing the gold medal in the classics. He studied law at Trinity and was admitted to the Irish bar, but he left shortly to pursue spiritual matters. Darby was ordained a priest in the Church of Ireland in 1826 and from then on was considered a very High Churchman. He relates that at one time even disowned the name protestant:

“I looked for the church… I too, governed by a morbid imagination, thought much of Rome, and its professed sanctity, and catholicity, and antiquity… I held apostolic succession fully, and the channels of grace to be there only. ”

By this Darby indicated that he too, at one time, had thought that grace was with the Catholic Church because it seemed to be in succession with the apostles that had gone before. Darby said further, “I held thus Luther and Calvin and their followers to be outside [the church]. ” He started meeting with the others for the Lord’s table beginning in the winter of 1827 and resigned his curacy in 1828. However he still kept one foot in the state church, while meeting informally with the brothers around the Lord’s table. Though Darby was still a Churchman, the Lord gradually was shining upon him, opening him to the matters concerning the Church. He wrote a treatise called “Considerations of the Nature and Unity of the Church of Christ” (1828). This is considered the Brethren’s first published pamphlet.

Most church historians acknowledge Darby to be the principal leading one in the beginning of the Brethren movement. The following summary is by Neatby:

“… The maker of Brethrenism as a system, its guiding an energizing spirit throughout, was John Nelson Derby. In the grandeur of his conceptions, in the irresistible vehemence of his will, in his consummate strategic instinct, in his genius for administration, and most of all in his immense personal ascendency, he stands unrivaled amongst the Brethren. His energy was stupendous. He was working for Brethrenism before he was 30, and when he was 80 he was working as hard as ever; nor had he been known to relax his efforts—efforts to put forth up the to the full measure of his great strength, and often beyond it—during the whole of the intervening time.

John Nelson Darby and the Brethren Assemblies
Beginning
B. Some of the Brethren

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Brother John

United Kingdom

Dec 21, 2013

Missing verse 3

3. There in the purpose of Thy love
Our place is now prepared,
As sons with Him who is above,
Who all our sorrows shared.

Ref: Little Flock Hymnal

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