Psalter Hymnal (Gray) ‎#166

166. Clap Your Hands

Text Information

• First Line: Clap your hands all you people
• Title: Clap Your Hands
• Paraphraser: Jimmy Owens (1972)
• Meter: PM
• Language: English
• Publication Date: 1987
• Scripture:
  Psalm 47:1
• Topic: Praise & Adoration; Songs for Children: Bible Songs; Joy; Music
• Copyright: Text and music © 1972, Lexicon Music, Inc. All rights reserved. International copyright secured. Used by permission.

Tune Information

• Name: CLAP YOUR HANDS
• Composer: Jimmy Owens (1972)
• Harmonizer: Dale Grotenhuis (1986)
• Meter: PM
• Key: C Major
• Copyright: Text and music © 1972, Lexicon Music, Inc. All rights reserved. International copyright secured. Used by permission.

Text Information:

Scripture References:
st. = Ps. 47:1

This jubilant setting of Psalm 47:1 is coupled with hosannas from Psalm 118:25. "Clap Your Hands" comes from the tradition of scripture-verse singing, a practice revived in the second half of the twentieth century, especially among American and British evangelical Christians. Jimmy Owens paraphrased the psalm texts and set them to music in 1972. It was published that year by Lexicon Music, Inc., as part of "Come Together," a liturgical teaching musical. Probably the most familiar use of "Hosanna!" ("Save us, we pray") is in the context of Jesus, triumphal entry into Jerusalem, in which the Jewish people quote Psalm 118:25-26, saying, "Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!" (John 12: 13). For further commentary on this psalm see PHH 47.

Liturgical Use:
As a chorus; as a frame surrounding a festive hymn such as 408 or 413, especially on Ascension Day. See also PHH 47.

--Psalter Hymnal Handbook

Tune Information:

James Lloyd Owens (b. Clarksdale, MS, 1930) was educated at Millsaps College, Jackson, Mississippi, and began his musical career as a jazz performer and arranger for Stan Kenton. He served for fourteen years as a minister of music at three different California churches. An arranger-producer of some eighty recordings, Owens has also produced a dozen Christian musicals, including If My People, The Witness, and Come Together. He and his wife, Carol, founded and are directors of a music institute, the School of Music Ministries International, which travels worldwide.

CLAP YOUR HANDS is a four-part canon; it may be sung in unison with the given accompaniment or in two- or four-part canon, sung without the keyboard accompaniment. The incipit invites its own accompaniment-hand clapping! Orff instruments may also be used. One example of a pattern: feel half notes on the pitches (CG/CG/CC/GC). Other stanzas can be added when singing this chorus by itself. Here is one suggestion:

Clap your hands, all you people;
Christ has ascended into heaven!
Clap your hands, all you people;
Christ has ascended with shouts of joy!
Hosanna, hosanna!
Christ has ascended into heaven!
Praise him, praise him!
Christ has ascended with shouts of joy!
-Based on Psalm 47:1, 5; 118:25; and the Ascension gospel; vers. Bert Polman, 1987

--Psalter Hymnal Handbook