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