Learn the hymns in ASL

One of my favorite hymns, with a neat story behind it. It was written in 1879, by William Clayton, who died the day after he composed the lyrics as a letter to his wife. The original title was “All is Well.”

I haven’t learned to sign it yet, but it’s the next on my list. =)

This is one of the ones I already knew, but I just practiced it to make sure I remembered all the signs. So that’s TWO now!
AS I HAVE LOVED YOU,
LOVE ONE ANOTHER.
THIS NEW COMMANDMENT:
LOVE ONE ANOTHER.
BY THIS shall MEN KNOW YE ARE MY DISCIPLES.
if YE HAVE LOVE ONE TO ANOTHER.

I am starting with this one because I already know the signs to it. Sure, it’s only one verse and it’s a little kiddie song, but I can sign it. Yay for me.

Here are the words, with the signed ones in CAPS:
KEEP the COMMANDMENTS.
KEEP the COMMANDMENTS.
IN THIS there is SAFETY,
IN THIS there is PEACE.
WORDs of a PROPHET:
KEEP the COMMANDMENTS.
IN THIS there is SAFETY AND PEACE.

I’m not sure I will feel the need to write the words to all the hymns I learn, but this one is sweet so I thought I’d share.

I am just going to get out the ASL dictionary and the hymnbook and learn new hymns the same way I learned the ones I already know: by teaching myself. Then I will show them to my daughter to make sure I’m doing everything right.

Doing it this way is more work than I thought learning from the DVD would be, but so is learning from the DVD. I can still use the DVD, but to learn the songs, it is too hard. It is not meant to be a teaching video anyway.

I already know a couple of songs. I will just start where I am and build on what I know from here.

I finally watched a dozen or so songs on the DVD. I can hear the music and the lyrics and there are subtitles, but it goes too fast and the people are not signing the way I learned ASL.

Indeed, I am not very fluent, but I do know hundreds of words, and the DVD people are signing differently. They are not even consistent with one another. They also keep their hands really close to their bodies and sign more of the words than what should be necessary for a song.

I can’t just slow it down, either. They are (of course) signing whole sentences and the captions only go with one phrase at a time. It doesn’t always match. Without the words, I get lost.

My daughter learned ASL in high school and is really skillful at it, so maybe she could help me—if she’s in the mood. Otherwise, it is too much like really easy homework and she gets bored.

That’s it so far.

I unwrapped the package and read the list of hymns in it. It has 127 hymns, most of which I already know the words to. This will help me with my “Learn New Languages” goal and my “Play Musical Instruments” goal. I know my hands themselves aren’t technically musical instruments, but if I accompany a hymn in ASL at church, it still counts … because I said so.