Singing in Church, School and Home

I have received a number of mails regarding my post on the English Choral Tradition, most of which link the demise of the BCP services and the rise of the 'worship band'. I have had a few who claim that the modern music has 'the anointing' and the 'old stuff' is exactly that - old and stuffy!

I have various editions of Hymns Ancient and Modern (HA&M) and one, early copy, makes note that some hymns, "Which never really found favour," and those that had been removed, "On the assumption that they were not likely to last much longer!" (even though some might consider them popular)

There are comments regarding the inclusion of 'new' songs which, causing people to move from plainsong, caused quite a stir but the books, "Sought not to break fresh ground or exploit novel ideas," but:

"The hope is that it may prove to be, as it was before, a consolidation of all that has been gained over many a long year since the wholesome practice of hymn-singing won an accepted place in Church, School and Home."

Many have moaned at the modern songs that have appeared in the various editions of HA&M and yet over time they became accepted and took their place as 'standards'. The same is true of some of the modern songs that abound (although there is much doggerel and trite scribbling to be overcome as well - but that was ever the case). As for anointing, I believe that people can be anointed in the task of writing songs but don't believe songs 'possess anointing'. They might bring us into a place where God can touch us and where we, realising our inadequacies, revelling in our salvation or brought into wonder, love and praise - let Him. But that is very different from the song possessing the anointing itself.

We need to be flexible in what we sing (after all, as Sumner puts it, the organ is the King of all instruments and (my opinion) the voice is the most flexible of all). Bach or Berio, Kendrick or Keble - We need to sing together and praise God for all we are and with all we have.

So, let's hear one of those modern songs (according to someone in the nineteen fifties:



One man's modern doggerel is another's sublime experience!

Pax

Music - the end of the choral tradition

Engaged in a conversation about a church choir in a place that my companion had visited, they made the observation that the choir was 'well advanced in years' and as a result the women were thin and reedy and the men obviously past 'their sell by dates'. Another person expressed the view that the 'Glee' type programmes and other 'music' shows had to be good for the choral experience and that therefore this had to be good for the English Church Choral Tradition (ECCT) too!

They seemed shocked and perhaps a little antagonistic (or just plain unbelieving) that I had considered that to be the case but I stand by my views.

The reality is that this country was shaped, musically, by the ECCT. People went to church and by so doing were exposed to singing with others and the hearing of some great (and some not so great, I'll say it before someone else does) choral and organ music. When I was a young boy I found myself in a church choir (I was eight) and dutifully turned up every Thursday evening for choir practice (if you didn't go you couldn't do weddings and weddings meant money!) where I learned to read music, to listen to other people singing and sing with them. This gave me a love of music, all music, and has served me well ever since.

Then we came to the time when decline 9and other influences) meant that we had mixed choirs. My how the purists threw up their hands at that. But the loss of the pure treble and the male alto for women wasn't all bad m'Lord, for it extended the experience and swelled the, often diminishing, ranks. A love of music is to great to be witheld of restricted and so on the ECCT went.

Then as church-going declined and the availability of so many other forms of music and the leading people away from the square ECCT took hold the choirs began to close their doors. The marketing of what music was according to shows like Britain hasn't got talent, Flop Star and many others told the kids who once would have graced a church choir that this was what music was all about.Singing through the nose, epiglotis-wobbling, musical cobblers! Even if they sing (badly) there would be redemption for them in a church choir but this is outside the experience of the parents and so the children never get taken along.

"But," (always a BUT) says one of those with whom I conversed, "If they make Glee groups or sing Gospel, this will lead them to move in to sacred (my word) as they develop!" Would that it did, for in conversation with the head of a supposedly specialist music school some time back, asking whether we could encourage the pupils who were doing grades into the local church choir to help them with their aural tests and improve their listening and musical skills, I was shocked to hear that they'd tried and found not one pupil interested. A week after this there were queues outside the school hall when they auditioned for Annie get yourGreased Lightning Oklahoma show!

The thrill of singing with others and making a sound that echoes the concord of God and touches something deep inside of us is something that we are fast losing. My girls (have a houseful) sing all the latest songs and they are musical, but if it wasn't for the stuff we play and the fact that they sing in church, they'd merely be like the rest of the one-dimensional musical experience kids that walk past our doors.

The demise of the ECCT is about more than church-going, it is also about the demise of music in a nation that has been sold a minuscule part of musical experience and told that it is the whole. Consumerism in music limiting rather than promoting it (perhaps that's because those who do so don't promote 'serious' of sacred choral stuff!)

Pax