Far Out on the Desolate Billow (Salutas), by Silcher
Every score here is public domain, free to read, print and keep. Open it in the browser and it plays, at whatever tempo you can read it.
Get the practice plan for Far Out on the Desolate Billow (Salutas)
Here it is. Check your inbox for day 1.
- Hear it through at Slow (45 bpm). Open it in the reader, choose Slow, and follow the page with your eyes without playing. As it plays, count 2 big beats to the bar.
- Learn the right hand of bars 1 to 8 on its own, in C major. Say the note names out loud the first time through, then play it three times without stopping.
- Learn the left hand of the same bars on its own. Keep it quiet and even: it is the floor the tune stands on.
- Put hands together at Slow, 45 bpm. Bars 1 to 8 only. Stop after every wrong note and play that bar again before moving on.
- Move up to Steady (68 bpm) once Slow feels easy three times in a row. Then learn the next 8 bars the same way: right hand, left hand, together.
- Play the whole piece (under a minute) from the start, at whatever speed keeps it going. A steady run with a few slips beats a fast one that stops.
About this piece
Far Out on the Desolate Billow is sung here to the tune Salutas, by Friedrich Silcher, 1789 to 1860. The words are by Rossiter W. Raymond, 1840 to 1918. This four-part setting is from The Army and Navy Hymnal of 1920, compiled for worship in the United States Army and Navy; the closing Amen is left off.
How to play it
Play it as a choir sings it: the tune on top of the right hand with the alto under it, tenor and bass in the left. Count 6/8 steadily and change each chord together on the beat.
Reading it, and printing it
The score opens in Artform's reader, which shows the music as engraved notation and plays it back so you can hear the line before you try it. You can slow the tempo down, loop a passage that is not working yet, and print the page when you would rather have paper on the stand.
The file itself is MusicXML, which MuseScore, Sibelius, Finale and Dorico all open, so the notes are yours to keep whatever you read them in.
More free Silcher sheet music
Who Silcher was
German composer and music director at the University of Tübingen who collected and arranged folk songs. His setting of Heine's Die Lorelei became a national favourite. He did a great deal to spread choral singing in Germany.
Learn the music behind it
Reading a piece and understanding it are different skills. If you want the harmony under this one, the chord trainer teaches chords the way songs use them, and the scale pages cover the fingering for every key, including C major.