Holy Manna is the
hymn tune
A hymn tune is the melody of a musical composition to which a hymn text is sung. Musically speaking, a hymn is generally understood to have four-part (or more) harmony, a fast harmonic rhythm (chords change frequently), with or without refrain ...
originally written for "
Brethren, We Have Met Together", which is one of the oldest published American folk hymns. Holy Manna is a
pentatonic
A pentatonic scale is a musical scale with five notes per octave, in contrast to the heptatonic scale, which has seven notes per octave (such as the major scale and minor scale).
Pentatonic scales were developed independently by many ancie ...
melody in
Ionian mode
Ionian mode is a musical mode or, in modern usage, a diatonic scale also called the major scale.
It is the name assigned by Heinrich Glarean in 1547 to his new authentic mode on C (mode 11 in his numbering scheme), which uses the diatonic octav ...
. It was originally published by William Moore in ''Columbian Harmony'', a
four-note shape-note tunebook, in 1829, and is attributed to him.
Like most shape-note songs from that century, it is usually written in three parts. The meter is 87.87D.
Popularity
In addition to being used in a significant number of early American hymnals, including ''
Southern Harmony
The ''Southern Harmony, and Musical Companion'' is a shape note hymn and tune book compiled by William Walker, first published in 1835. The book is notable for having originated or popularized several hymn tunes found in modern hymnals and sha ...
'' (#103) and ''
Baptist Harmony'' (#1), Holy Manna appears in a large number of modern hymnals.
It is also used as a common tune for other songs, especially "God, Who Stretched the Spangled Heavens", "All Who Hunger, Gather Gladly", and "I will Arise and Go to Jesus".
References
{{Authority control
Hymn tunes