More metrical psalms

By the power of Facebook & Google, another friend hath suggested these Psalms unto me.

Again, all that time on Facebook has not been wasted. Another friend pointed me to:

http://www.psalmistry.com/psalms_christian_music_directory.htm

http://genevanpsalter.redeemer.ca/

http://metricalpsalms.homestead.com/archives.html

Praise! Online

A friend kindly pointed me to Praise! Online. For £10 a year one can get access to the Praise! words and music, extra stuff like background information, new songs, MP3s etc. I'm particularly interested in Praise! as it has at least one metrical version for each of the Psalms and I hope the online version will save me having to type out the words for us to sing in church.

Sing Psalms

In obedience to Eph 5:19 and Col 3:16, and 'cos its the Word of God and all that, I'd love us to sing the Psalms regulalrly. Great as many of our hymns and songs are, the Word of God must be better, surely?

But sadly I find Anglican chant (which allows you to sing the words straight out of an English Bible if you want to, as the music adapts to fit the words) very hard to get the hang of. And if the Vicar can't do it, I imagine your average 21st Century occasional church-going might not find it easy either.

So I'm trying to find some metrical (i.e. hymn) versions of the Psalms we could sing.

As, sadly, the words are often not as familiar to us as they might be (!) I'd like to go for really easy well-known tunes so it's not too much of a car crash!

Maybe this would even help us to get the words into our heads. I'd love to be able to wander round the house belting out the Psalms and not just bits of "Hey, big spender!", or whatever!

You can find some suggestions of one hymn to the tune of another from Steve Jefferey here.

I'm going to suggest one week soon we try:

Words: Praise! 2b by Jim Sayers (Psalm 2)
Tune: Jerusalem by C. H. Parry Long Meter Double 88 88 D - Praise! 172 / Hymns Old & New 31 / Mission Praise 438

and then the next week:

Words: Praise! 3 by Mollie Knight (Psalm 3)

Tune: Long Meter 88 88 - Duke Street (e.g. Fight The Good Fight) Praise! 544 / Hymns Old & New 128 / Mission Praise 143

The Nation's Favourite Carols

Results of a You Gov poll from a list of 20. HT: Church Mouse

The top 5:

1. Silent Night (20%)
2. Come All Ye Faithful (10%)
3. Away in a Manger (6%)
4. Once in Royal David's City (5%)
5. Little Town of Bethlehem (5%)

Suspend Your Belief?

It matters what we sing, right? Especially in public worship? Words that we sing are likely to stick in our heads and affect our thinking.

How much do we care about the words of our carols? Should we avoid singing ones that might be untrue or unhelpful? Should they come with a health-warning from the front? Or does everyone take them with a pinch of salt anyway, and is that okay?!

What's all this talk about snow ("In the bleak mid-winter" etc.)? Was it (likely) to have been snowy in Bethlehem when Jesus was born? Does it matter? Am I being too literal minded there?

Surely the little Lord Jesus did make some crying Away In that Manger, didn't he? Does it not undermine the reality of the incarnation to think that Jesus didn't cry?

What if there were not 3 kings of Orient and they weren't kings?

Is Good King Wensuslas bad?

Unto Us A Child Is Born

I'm thining of preaching on Isaiah 9 in our Christmas Carol service and wondering if we should try to play this video from Handel's Messiah with what seems to be called Kinetic Typography, which I think means you see the text on the screen in an interesting way fitting in with the music!

Worth knowing

Before, God-willing, I become an Incumbent, I think I might re-read The Canons of the Church of England. There's lots of interesting useful stuff worth knowing. For example, B20.2 Of the musicians and music of the Church is quite helpful:

Where there is an organist, choirmaster or director of music the minister shall pay due heed to his advice and assistance in the choosing of chants, hymns, anthems, and other settings, and in the ordering of the music of the church; but at all times the final responsibility and decision in these matters rests with the minister.

Fruit Song

I just wanted to say how much I'd enjoyed Fruit Song which is a setting of part of Song of Songs 2 by Twelth Day that had it's world premier at the Jones wedding. I don't seem to be able to find it on the interweb.

Music Meeting Handout

Here's some possible text for the handout for the meeting we're having about Church Music on Saturday. It gives some issues to think about and discuss.

Introduction / some biblical considerations

Eph 4:15 – (1) Speak the truth (2) in love!

Worship in the Bible: (1) all of life – Rom 12:1-2 (2) special corporate gathered Lord’s Day public worship

Music in the Bible – Psalms e.g. 33:1-3; 47:1, 7; 98; 150

(1) Worship God - Heb 12:28; 1 Cor 14:40

(2) Mutual edification / building up / encouragement – 1 Cor 14:26

Ps 103-104

Col 3:12-15; Phil 2:2-4

Eph 5:19-20; Col 3:16

Some questions / issues to discuss…

How can our music better serve the Biblical purposes of worship and conform to what the Bible says about congregational music?

In the light of what the Bible says, what would we ideally like the music to be like?

What might we pray / plan for?

What are (a) the strengths and (b) the weaknesses of what we currently do?

How does our music affect the mood / atmosphere / feel / emotions of the service? Is that what we want?

What next steps might we take?

How could we make our music more attractive to newcomers?

Are there any skills, gifts, resources, people we are not currently using?

What do you think of the current choice of songs? Mix of old and new? Range? Repetition? Content? Music?

Is the music the right speed?

Amount of music in services?

Incidental / background music (before, after, during, communion etc.)?

Are the music practices helpful?

Singers?

Congregational singing? Clear when to come in?

Instruments? Organ? Keyboard? (Alone or together?) Guitars? Drums? Other?

Does the sound system serve the music? Sound check? Volumes / levels / mix?

Music for children and young people?

Use of CDs / MP3s?

Morning Service?

Evening Service?

Family Services? (Harvest, Christmas, Easter, Holiday Club, Summer)

Special services / events?

How could you serve / help?

Do you have particular songs to recommend?

Any song books / CDs / websites etc. to recommend?

Music Meeting

Here are some jottings towards the Church Music Meeting we're having on Saturday.

Thank you to all those who already give generously of their time, effort and talents in the music ministry of the church.

We appreciate what you do and we’re grateful for it.

What we’re about today:

Not about taking decisions at this meeting.

I’m going to give a little bit of input at the beginning, but basically this is a chance to hear what people have to say.

A listening exercise.

So speak up!

The Vicar and I will talk about this some time, maybe with the rest of the staff meeting, PCC, musicians and singers or whatever seems appropriate.

General or specific points welcome – request a particular song.

I have some thoughts and ideas about the music, but I’m going to try to hold back and facilitate!

Everyone is entitled to their point of view, even if they’re wrong!

We might ask people to expand on what they’re saying or explain why they think that, but we don’t want to necessarily have a big argument about every point.

Let’s hear what people think, even if we disagree with it.

It may be that we’re already doing the best we can.

Talk about the ideal – dreams, visions, aspirations – inform our prayers.

Next steps – where can we realistically go from here with the people, time, energy, equipment we’ve got.

Eph 4:15 - Speak the truth in love!

(1) Speak the truth – be honest, open, frank, speak your mind, say your piece, feel free to say things that are negative or appropriately critical if need be, let’s not pretend

(2) in love – listen, respect one another’s’ opinions, be kind and gracious, gentle, avoid blame, be positive and constructive, let’s not impute wicked motives to one another unless there’s very good evidence!

The purpose of sung worship in the Bible:

(1) Worship God

We worship God with our whole lives, every day, not just with our lips on a Sunday.

Romans 12:1-2 – “Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God--this is your spiritual {Or reasonable} act of worship. ² Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is--his good, pleasing and perfect will.”

But we do meet on a the Lord’s Day for special corporate gathered public worship.

Hebrews 12:28 – “let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe”

What does the Bible say about music?

Lots of music in the Bible!

Psalms - Loudness, joy, variety of instruments.

We want what we do to be honouring to God – orderly, reverence, awe, greatness and majesty of God, minds and hearts engaged, joy, wholehearted, passionately, intelligently, sincerely.

God-centred songs, objective truth about what God has done.

Music has the ability to engage our emotions for good or ill.

We want songs that express and encourage appropriate responses to what God has done and said.

Song lyrics can be very memorable.

We want to stock our minds with good biblical stuff.

We want substantial biblical content to what we sing.

Biblical songs can help us to have the words of Christ dwell in us richly. (Col 3:16)

Songs that preach to ourselves / to one another. (Ps 103-104)

1 Corinthians 14:40 – “But everything should be done in a fitting and orderly way.”

(2) Mutual edification / building up / encouragement

God alone is the object and recipient of our worship.

We worship the audience of one!

We’re not performing.

The congregation is not the audience.

But we are to be concerned for others in our worship.

1 Cor 14:26 – “Let all things be done for building up.”

We need to ask what will edify, encourage and strengthen others?

This is after all our corporate public worship.

We are worshiping together as a body.

Sunday worship is not just about me and Jesus – we can do what we like in the privacy of our own homes with a CD player and headphones!

We worship and serve God by serving one another.

Song: Servant King - “Each others’ needs to prefer, for it is Christ we’re serving”

You can’t please all the people all the time!

Some things are matters of taste and we’ll differ on them, that’s fine.

Let’s think not only of our personal preferences.

Bear with one another (Col 3:13)

Philippians 2:3 - “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.”

Our Sunday services are something of a shop front.

We need to consider not only our existing congregation but those who don’t yet come to church.

Music and singing can be very important in setting a mood and atmosphere.

If people come to church and they don’t like the music, they may not come back.

There are more important things to a church than the music, but it does really matter.

Especially in a place where there are other conservative Evangelical churches with good Bible teaching to choose from, attractive music could determine someone’s choice of church.

You might not think it should be that way, but I reckon it probably is.

We neglect the command to sing Psalms (Col 3:16). We rarely use the faultless hymnbook that God has given us.

Eph 5:19-20 – “Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Colossians 3:16 – “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God.”

Calvin and Music

You even get to hear James Jordan sing in this lecture!

Sung Worship / Music Resources

D.v. on Saturday morning I'm leading a meeting at church about our music. Here are a few resources (not all of which I've looked at in any detail). Anything else to recommend?

Don Carson, Worship by the Book (Zondervan)

John M. Frame, ‘A Fresh Look at the Regulative Principle’

http://reformedperspectives.org/newfiles/joh_frame/Frame.Ethics2005.AFreshLookattheRegulativePrinciple.pdf

John Frame, ‘Some Questions about the Regulative Principle’

http://www.reformed.org/misc/index.html?mainframe=/misc/frame_regulative_principle.html

John Frame, Contemporary Worship Music (P&R, 1997)

John Frame, Worship in Spirit and Truth (P & R, 1996)

Christopher Idle, Sally Trethewey, and Rosalie Milne, Church Musicians’ Handbook (Matthias Media) available from Good Book Company

Paxson Jeancake, The Art of Worship (Wimpf and Stock, 2006)

Reggie Kidd, With One Voice (Baker, 2005)

David Peterson, Engaging With God

http://philippercival.com/blog/blog.html - Philip Percival’s blog – Director of Music at St Ebbe’s Church, Oxford

Vaughan Roberts, True Worship

Terry Virgo – Worship in Spirit and in Truth – (John 4:23-24) 31/1/2009 Worship School Conference, Brighton

http://www.cck.org.uk/Articles/158720/Church_of_Christ/Worship/Worship_School/Resources/MP3s/Terry_Virgo_Worship.aspx - charismatic

http://www.resoundworship.org/ - new songs

http://www.songsfortoday.com/ - biblical songs for today’s church

http://www.sovereigngracemusic.org/

https://store.emumusic.com.au/

http://www.gettymusic.com/

New Songs For Churches

Someone recommended RESOUNDworship.org as an exciting free resource for churches. Their stated aim is to provide local churches with fresh worship songs containing strong, Biblical lyrics supported by singable, contemporary music.

New biblical songs for today's church

http://www.songsfortoday.com/index.php

Long term best or short term fix?

Maybe this is a stupid question but how do we decide between the long term best and the short term fix? Or, if we want to get there, where do we go from here?

For example, if some of our church music is pretty weak and we want to improve it (particularly making it more attractive to the under 40s) and eventually we want to chant the Psalms, do we just do it, introduce Psalm practice, start on some metrical Psalms, or give up on the whole thing and buy Spring Harvest 07, or what?

Or take the Sunday School. If we want children to be in church with their parents as much as possible, do we spend lots of time and energy on having a great Sunday school so that we can have lots of kids to send out to it?

I know, it all depends and we must distinguish. But it feels like giving up on long term goals for the sake of short term expediecy. Maybe its time for a cuppa.

Psalm Singing

Our Psalms singing in Oak Hill Chapel got off to an excellent start this week with Psalm 24 to music by J Barnby and Psalm 95 to music by S Stanford.

Many thanks to Towner for guiding us, and to Dr Renz for a sentence of exegesis.

Another opportunity on Tuesday 4:30-4:50pm. What could be better?

Psalm Practice

I'm straying into territory here of which I am ignorant, but if I only stuck to things I knew about.... I hope readers will correct me if I've erred.

Today in Oak Hill chapel we chanted / sang Psalm 98 using a score that seems to be called 'Joseph Barnby', though that sounds more like the name of a fella than a tune to me.

I think the method we used is called Anglican Chant? I've got a CD that does something similar and we did some chanting in our Psalms lectures, but I've never tried it in worship before.

The system is that each word is sung on the notes indicated in the score repeating as necessary untill you get to one of the vertical lines in the text which indicates that you should move onto the next bar. Sometimes a syllable has to be drawn out accross more than one note. A dot in the text indicates a change of note within a bar (i.e. the next sylabble takes a seperate note) and the * indicates that one ought to take a breath.

I found it extremely hard to follow.

But the Bible commands us to sing Psalms. How much better to sing God's Word than the mere words of men.

Metrical psalm paraphrases are good and can be sung like ordinary hymns but the great advantage of such a chanting system is that it allows for the use of any text, so that the Psalm can be chanted in as near to the original form as possible (there is no need for a metrical paraphrase).

The advantage of the music is that it makes it more affecting and beautiful - especially now that I've realised with the help of Mrs Lloyd that there are four vocal parts!

One could have a number of different settings that accord to the genre or mood of the Psalms. Obviously its easier if there aren't too many different settings to master but I guess we might want different music for a lament and a praise psalm.

I'm not sure how much this kind of musical chanting serves memorisation if a number of different Psalms use the same setting but I guess its still more memorable than just speaking? Through composed music might be better for memorisation in the sense of not confusing Psalms, but there'd be 150 pieces to learn! Maybe an individual chant setting for each psalm is the answer?

Surely for those who can read music, singing a through composed Psalm would be pretty easy as the words could be printed below the notes. One of the things I found tricky about the way we sang it was needing to know where we were both in the text and in the score.

But for me it was jolly hard. I need lots of practice.

Anyway, what I really wanted to say was, why doesn't one of you musos hold a weekly 20 mins. Psalm chanting / singing session in chapel? Presumably it would require next to no preparation for you and we could try to get some of God's word into our thick skulls as we praise him and edify one another. I'd come. And I bet I wouldn't be the only one. If there were only 5 of us, that would be okay, wouldn't it?

Jordan's Song Suggestions

Next time you're planning a service, how about picking some of these songs:

We can use a psalm as a call to worship (e.g. 20, 24, 27, 29), another for confession (6, 25, 38, 51), another for praise for our deliverance into the kingdom (5, 8, 9, 11, 18), another as an exhortation to hear the Word or as a preaching text (1, 14, 15, 19, 37), another as a communion meditation (16, 23, 36, 45, 48), and another as a commissioning dismissal at the end of worship (2, 47, 72, 82, 110, 149). (p77)

Beyond the 150 psalms, there are many other songs in the Bible that we can chant and that should become part of the warp and woof of our being, such as the Song of the Red Sea (Exodus 15), the Song of Moses (Deuteronomy 32), the Song of Deborah (Judges 5), the Song of Hannah (1 Samuel 2), the Prayer of Jonah (Jonah 2), the Song of Habakkuk (Habakkuk 3), several songs in Isaiah, the Song of Mary, the Song of Simeon, the Song of Zechariah, several songs in Paul (Philippians 2:5-11, Colossians 1:13-20; 1 Timothy 3:16), and the songs in Revelation. (p80)

[At the end of the service:] The appropriate response of the congregation is a psalm of dismissal, such as the Nunc Dimittis (“Lord, now let Your servant depart in peace”) or the Benedictus (“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for He has visited and redeemed His people”).” (p93)

Theses on Worship: Notes Towards the Reformation of Worship second edition, slightly revised (Niceville, Transfiguration Press, 1^st ed. 1994, 1998)

In fact, maybe we should stick to biblical songs till we've got them memorised and then we can worry about mastering Spring Harvest 27, or whatever?

The Music of Marriage

Though completely unmusical myself, since marrying a musician, I’ve been particularly attuned to musical analogies in theological writing; and its surprising how often they crop up. Tom Wright seems particularly fond of them.

I’ve read a few out to Mrs Lloyd, and she’s not always been terribly impressed. This one got a better response than most:

From Peter Leithart’s wedding sermons in A Great Mystery (Moscow, Canon Press, 2006).

Leithart is taking about Christ’s promise to build his church and the duties of mutual edification in the Body of Christ and in marriage. He says:

To capture the complex beauty of this picture, the metaphor of building eventually becomes unwieldy. We are not accustomed to buildings that build themselves, much less to buildings that turn around and somehow build their builder. We need something more supple to capture the whole biblical truth, and when we need something more supple we turn, naturally, to music. Christ and His bride are fugally related: Christ the Head is the theme, but the bride follows as a melody of her own, which keeps in step with the melody of her husband. Christ’s song blazes the path for the song of the bride and provides the aural space in which the bride’s song is song; the bride’s song is always to harmonize with Christ’s and never to drown out His voice. But responsive and secondary though it is, the song of the bride also builds up and adorns the song of the husband. The duet is miraculously richer than the solo. This is a great mystery, but I speak of Christ and his church.

So too, marriage is harmonics, the lifelong fugal dance in which the husband’s song calls for the bride, and the bride’s song adorns her husband’s, so that they are together a single song. Marriage is designed to be truly a Song of Songs.

None of this is within the range of human possibility. We are not capable of building another human being. In our sin and folly, we are instead like the foolish woman who tears down her house with her own hands. Nor are we capable of the kind of harmonizing required for two lives to become a single song, for discord rather than harmony is the fundamental condition of sinful human existence. Marital harmony is not within human possibility, but it is possible. It is possible by the power of the Spirit who proceeds from the Father and the Son, the Spirit who gives us the freedom to become and to be what we, in ourselves, could never become or be.

Otto and Bethany, this is our prayer for you on your wedding day: that you may build one another in the power of the Spirit, and that your lives may harmonize as you both harmonize of the melody of the Spirit, the melody that is the Spirit.

… the Spirit who is the Eternal Musician, whose movement is the eternal rhythm of triune life, who is the Eternal Music of the Eternal God. (pp62-64)

Or again:

… creation, according to David Hart’s summary of Gregory of Nyssa [in The Beauty of the Infinite, Eerdmans, 2003], “is a symphonic and rhythmic complication of diversity, motion and rest, a song praising God, [who is] the true, primordial, archetypal music, in which human nature can glimpse itself as in a mirror.” We are, in short, “music moved to music.” Faith means trusting God to play His infinite fugue through our finite lives, to sing His eternal song in our temporality, to transpose the harmonious polyphony that is His uncreated life into the key of created existence….

Joshua and Sara: Live in faith, trusting God to play out His eternal song with ever-increasing vibrancy through the harmony of your marriage. (p95)