ABSTRACT
The transcription was created by Theodore Seward (1835–1902) and was first published in a book titled Jubilee Songs as Sung by the Jubilee Singers of Fisk University (New York, NY: Biglow & Main, 1872). Seward explained that he developed this notation by listening very carefully to the singers and then asking them to check what he had written; it was therefore, at its origin, a descriptive notation. However, this arrangement of “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” has been reprinted many times and choirs have used it as a learning tool. It has become, over time, a prescriptive notation.
