One line of letters per line of verse
Each line of the sheet carries one line of the hymn’s verse, and each starts with the pickup note that leads into it:
y o - - aoa - - p o - - u y - - y: from D up to G, the turn on B, then down through E to D.o - - aoa - - p d - - a: the same start, but this time the tune rises to high D (d) and pauses on B. That high D carries the word “me”; here it lasts two beats, while many hymnals hold it longer, often a full bar or more, before the next line begins.d - adao - - y u - oouy - - y: the climax. The melody hovers around high D and B, falls through G to low D, and circles back up through E and G.o - - aoa - - p o - - - -: the opening shape once more, now coming to rest on G.
Lines one, two and four begin identically, so the whole tune is really one phrase with three different endings plus a contrasting third line.
Six keys, no Shift
The melody uses six white keys: D, E, G, A, B and the D an octave higher, y u o p a d. There is no C and no F♯ in it, which is typical of a pentatonic folk tune. On a computer keyboard the right hand stays around the middle of the top letter row, from y to p, with a short reach to a and d.
Singing and playing
Amazing Grace is usually taken slowly, and the joined letters are its ornaments: aoa is the small turn a congregation sings on a single syllable. Play them quickly and lightly, then lean on the longer note that follows. The third line is the one to practise alone, since it moves more than the others: d - adao needs a quick B–D–B before the fall to G.
Words from 1779, a tune from the American South
John Newton, a former slave-ship captain who became a Church of England minister, wrote the text; it appeared in 1779 in the Olney Hymns, which he published with William Cowper. The tune now sung to it, NEW BRITAIN, was a folk melody from the southern United States. Hymnary.org’s notes say it was first printed as a hymn tune, in shape notes, in Columbian Harmony (1829), and first set to Newton’s words in William Walker’s Southern Harmony (1835). Both text and tune are in the public domain.
Another slow tune to practise the same even, singing touch is Silent Night.