Amazing local experience....

[oopsorganist]

I have to recount this!

Last Sunday I agreed to deputize in a local Methodist chuch for evening prayer, promised that they would sing heartily and would not mind ....
if I bumbled and messed up in my usual fashion etc

So there am I with a really easy to play modern organ (people don't usually let me near proper organs) and 13 people, on the whole rather elderly.

And they sang heartily. For verse one. Well worth me turning out at tea time.

Then, suddenly, in verse two, in four part harmony. Loudly. Filling the church. Sight singing.

I looked round to see if a choir had suddenly appeared from somewhere. Nope.

Gobsmacked.

[pirate]

I remember this from when I used to go to 'big' Sunday School in Castletown near Sunderland in the 60s. It can't have been every week, but I do remember in particular men and women singing different parts to 'All hail the power of Jesus' name': us singing 'Cro-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-wn' as the men rumbled 'Crown Him! Crown Him! Crown Him!' As far as I recall we didn't even have the music. I loved it, and many years later found the music so we could sing it in St Thomas's, Canterbury, to the delight of the ex-Anglicans and a certain amount of suspicion from the Catholics...

[HallamPhil]

Are you suggesting that Catholics don't like harmony?! (I jest).

I can recall asking a Nigerian woman in St Ignatius Stamford Hill Parish (many moons ago) what song she carried with her and sang to remind her of home. before she replied in song she asked me which part she shoukld start with! She explained that it was her tradtion to sing the parts to the babies as they grew into children.

I also remember, more recently, Seraphin from Congo who was astonished at my request to refrain from singing improvised harmonies in certain songs/hymns. He looked at me as though I was deranged.

I suppose the fact that many of our churches rely on the accompanist to provide the harmonies has robbed the assembly of the necessity and opportunity to provide its own. Pick a song/hymn everyone knows and inspire a congregation with the confidence to sing unaccompanied and it may not be long before you hear that these skills are not forgotten and require little teaching from the 'experts'!

[VML]

Spontaneous harmony is wonderful. If only I could get our 'choir' to do it. We in this country haven't absorbed the fact that most singing everywhere and through all ages has been learnt aurally, and still is. You listen, understand the sound of the progressions and try one of the notes and lines, quietly until you gain confidence. Then go for it! OK, it's not choral music as we know it, but it sure is wonderful to fill a room, church or chapel with harmony in every sense of the word.
Oops says the 13 or so Methodists last week were fairly elderly. So what? While writing this I am thinking of the sound at our quite trad folk song club last night: A song most of us had not heard before, but with an easily harmonised chorus, and the sound was glorious, and the average age was well over 50.

[Southern Comfort]

In my experience, part-singing by Methodist congregations is pretty normal. A lot of their doctrine is carried in the hymns they sing, and they like to get stuck in.

In our Catholic tradition, recently escaped from hundreds of years when the congregation did not sing at Mass but the choir did it on their behalf, we still have a lot of ground to make up.

When he was parish priest of Stowmarket, Fr James Walsh (now Dean at the cathedral in Norwich) taught his congregation to sing the Passion Chorale in four-part harmony, which they did one Good Friday (and maybe are still doing). So it's possible. You (and they!) just have to want to enough. (I bet he hasn't done it at the cathedral, though!)

[NorthernTenor]

Spontaneous harmony is wonderful. If only I could get our 'choir' to do it. We in this country haven't absorbed the fact that most singing everywhere and through all ages has been learnt aurally, and still is. You listen, understand the sound of the progressions and try one of the notes and lines, quietly until you gain confidence. Then go for it! OK, it's not choral music as we know it, but it sure is wonderful to fill a room, church or chapel with harmony in every sense of the word.
Oops says the 13 or so Methodists last week were fairly elderly. So what? While writing this I am thinking of the sound at our quite trad folk song club last night: A song most of us had not heard before, but with an easily harmonised chorus, and the sound was glorious, and the average age was well over 50.

As an ex-Protestant my observation is that protestants who sing four-part harmony tend not to be doing so spontaneously - it's a learned thing, and that tends to include an understanding of the dots on the page. For what it's worth, I discovered something similar at a folk-festival Moody and Sankey sing-along!

[NorthernTenor]

Oops: it sounds like a marvellous experience. They were clearly in tune with their tradition

[Southern Comfort]

my observation is that protestants who sing four-part harmony tend not to be doing so spontaneously - it's a learned thing, and that tends to include an understanding of the dots on the page.

Very true. Episcopal churches in the USA frequently have full music editions of the hymnal in the pews. The assumption is that people can read the dots and will sing the harmonies.

[Hare]

Slightly related I suppose; at this weekend's masses, to tie in with the Gospel, I played on the piano as background music during Communion Mary Magdalen's song (I don't know how to love him) from "Jesus Christ, Superstar". Almost imperceptibly at first, some of the congregation sang along in the Communion Procession; no words, they obviously just knew it. It's the first time I can remember people actually singing in the Procession! And I wasn't even expecting them to!!

[oopsorganist]

That's an interesting idea Hare.

SC? Yes that was just it. They have full music hymnals at this chapel. It was not spontaneous harmony as in folk clubs, it was the harmony written and possibly, then some.

The chapel has a tradition of great music singing... now with an active core of some 30 persons and in the case of the evening prayers, mainly very elderly. This is a great shame. They are an endangered species.

So why is it that when I have tried to teach a limited descant or a simple piece in harmony ie South African Alleluia to the willing small group that used to come to practices - why does it take weeks and weeks of practice to learn anything new. Even with the occasional use of a tape recorder and pointing out renditions on youtube, and even home visits to run through for the nervous... argh I have tried everything, but still, anything new strikes fear in their hearts and goes with a wobble.

This experience is significant for other reasons too. As our city contemplates the rationalisation (closing) of parishes and churches we wonder what the outcomes will be for musicians. Is their the possibility of help as parishes merge? Or the risk of a musician covering two parishes instead of one? There is certainly potential for parish traditions to grate slightly or worse. We so quickly get stuck in our ruts, sadly.

So in fact it was a more complex experience than being startled and gladdened by strong hearty harmony singing. There was also the model of a few firm people continuing to hold onto their mission and their base ( a good modern rebuilding programme gives them a hall, chapel, kitchen, meeting rooms, etc grounds and car park - multi purpose building) in an industrial empoverished area, inspite of declining numbers and age range. Oh, and male/female leadership.

Contrastingly we have ...........

Food for thought.

[oopsorganist]

Is there the possibility not is their the possibility.
Oops

[Hare]

Is there the possibility not is their the possibility.
Oops

And you a teacher too!!

[oopsorganist]

Yes
Luckily I only have to do CVC words and maybe use the occasional digraph. If I am good.

[Hare]

Yes
Luckily I only have to do CVC words and maybe use the occasional digraph. If I am good.

Can't think off hand of any liturgy-related CVC words..........? Better not either - we are way off topic!

[Hare]

This might be relevant to the topic:

http://www.canticanova.com/articles/misc/art7bs1.htm