Church Music

First Thoughts put out their ideas for the ten worst hymns of all time and what followed was a long trail of comments that are worth reading for their narrow minded, unimaginative, pompous, self-righteous displays of pig ignorance.  The tithe of dissenting commenters were rightly upset by the vitriol.  It simply boiled down to a personal dislike of the style of music, whatever they wanted to dress it up as, and a fear of any text that smelt liberal. (Note to right wing catholic bloggers – don’t read Amos, he’s a red.)  Obviously, not all the songs of the 70s and 80s will last, but those that resonate with assemblies will and be joined by new material with the best surviving.  Cathedrals can continue their museum pieces but they won’t work in the suburbs.

At the As One Voice conference last week they had a delightful historical sing through these years including many of these songs, which admittedly have suffered more than their fair share of uninspired renditions over the years.  Played sensitively and sung enthusiastically they all shone.  Perhaps these old warhorses just need to be looked at with fresh spectacles.

As a perverse entry into this fresh look how about a mildly bossa version of Here I Am, Lord, number four on the list.

Here I am Lord

I’m going to continue blog the song book As One Voice: the Next Generation.  I’ve decided I still have the gall to second guess the talented people who have put it together.  Perhaps a view from the suburbs is needed, if only because the very talented may not always see the difficulties faced by the less talented.

By the way, I’ve heard enough of the music now to just recommend you buy the thing.  It will save you a lot of looking for new material and it is 70% Australian composed which is a good thing to support.

This song is by established Australian songwriters, Monica O’Brien and Trisha Watts, and is loosely based on Ps 19:1-4.  The sample on the website is very sedate and polite but I’ve heard it done in a more lively way to better effect.  It has a lot of pushes half way through bars that will test the non syncopating singers in the assembly, but really the song has the rhythm of speech and is quite intuitive.  It should work fine.  I’d like to use it as the psalm when it is close enough to the Psalm of the week (I know that’s “wrong”) or just the refrain as a sung response.

My backing is pretty basic.  I use two different horn sounds for the call and response to aid with learning it and they are mixed up higher than you normally would for a backing track.

Refrain

Come, let us praise our God, Come, let us sing for joy,

With a heart of thanks we give honour.

You are a mighty God, You are the source of life.

Creator God we give praise.

Verse 1

From the deepest seas  (a voice is heard)

From the highest hills (a voice is heard)

From the rich, dark earth (a voice is heard)

All creation sings, God is heard.

Verse 2

Through the darkest night (a voice is heard)

Through the breaking dawn (a voice is heard)

Through the heart of life (a voice is heard)

All creation sings, God is heard.

© Monica O’Brien and Trisha Watts 1998.

David’s “Reflections and Suggestions” are well worth reading.  He laments the lack of singing by the people at mass and the lack of supervision by the Church of what is sung.  While he’s from another planet theologically to me, he makes a lot of sense when he promotes greater assistance for the parishes with their music and liturgy.  His experience from his Lutheran days was that:

we discovered that when parish pastors and musicians were provided with a quality resource in a number of formats (including electronically) with as little copyright restriction as possible, and to which they could quickly go to for everything they need to prepare Sunday liturgy, they no longer went to the effort of searching out resources from unofficial sources.

I don’t think there is any great need to discourage unofficial sources, but there is a great need to at least provide better official sources.

He also decries the use of CDs because they reinforce the culture of listening rather than participation.  I strongly agree and fear that their use will lead to a return to complete marginalisation of the laity and be as bad as a return to the exclusivity of chant by monks or polyphony by elite choirs rather than participatory singing by those in the pews. 

There is yet the problem of the decline in available musicians that has seen the rise of the use of pre-recorded music in our parishes (played either on CD or as MP3’s on a computer). The problem with using pre-recorded songs is that they are not designed for congregations to sing along; in fact the recorded voice of the professional singer or choir actually encourages the congregation to become a non-participatory audience which listens to rather than sings the song. I would personally recommend that in the production of any resource by the NLMB, the Bishops Commission consider also providing a complete set of pre-recorded musical accompaniments – without vocal tracks – for use by parishes that do not have musicians. These may be CD’s, MP3’s or (conceivably) even midi files (designed to be played through the many high standard electronic keyboards currently available). A resource that provided a seamless combination of print music, electronic texts for powerpoint projection and recorded musical accompaniment would make a very attractive package for Australian parishes.

Now I know I’m going to be the first to scream blue murder when the hymn police shoot down the hymns that mean a lot to many parishioners, but to my amazement I find myself agreeing with much of David says.  I also personally find that the singing style of the choirs and vocalists on recordings of the songs we usually sing are like no normal choir I’ve ever heard.  They are generally devoid of all signs of life and sung with Celine Dion levels of faux sincerity.

And for those who think the sport of complaining about the state of music in the Catholic Church is new, may I suggest you peruse Richard Terry’ 1907 book “Catholic Church Music,” especially the chapter on the evils of modern music.

As threatened I’m going to blog “As One Voice: the Next Generation.”

All the songs in AOV NG have clips to listen to at their site.  Just search for the song at the site and you can hear an MP3 snippet. You can also purchase the sheet music for this song from GIA.

These songs may be familiar to others but I’m coming across most of them for the first time.

I’m making my own backings and since I don’t know the songs I’ve mixed the melody line up.  Even if you hate canned music, they are a good way to teach new songs, especially to singers and musicians who don’t read music.

Song 1

A Place at the Table   Words: Shirley Erena Murray    Music: Lori True

For everyone born, a place at the table,
for everyone born, clean water and bread,
a shelter, a space, a safe place for growing,
for everyone born, a star over head.

Refrain:
And God will delight when we are creators
of justice and joy,

Yes, God will delight when we are creators
of justice,                              justice, and joy.

For woman and man, a place at the table,
revising the roles, deciding to share,
with wisdom and grace, dividing the power,
for woman and man, a system that’s fair. Refrain

For young and for old, a place at the table,
a voice to be heard, a part in the song,
the hands of a child in hands that are wrinkled,
for young and for old, the right to belong. Refrain

For just and unjust, a place at the table.
abuser, abused, with need to forgive,
in anger, in hurt, a mind-set of mercy,
for just and unjust, a new way to live. Refrain

For everyone born, a place at the table,
to live without fear, and simply to be,
to work, to speak out, to witness and worship,
for everyone born, the right to be free.

Words © Hope Publishing Company & Shirley Erena Murray

NB Shirley Erena Murray’s work may be accessed here at Hope Publishing and may be printed as a one off copy. Absolutely no alterations are to be made to the text. Any other use requires permission from the author.

Lori True is a GIA songwriter from Minnesota.  I’m not sure if she is responsible for the version excerpted on the AOV site but it has the usual wishy washy vocals that drive me nuts.

You might want to give it a try with my backing and sing normally.   I think it will sing easily for a congregation, it is pitched appropriately and could be sung with real enthusiasm.  It would make sense as a gathering song putting us in mind of the Kingdom of God we are striving for and a communion song telling us that we are the real presence of God in the world.

…and I don’t just like it because it will get up the nose of right wing traditional catholics.

It is also one of the songs that caused this conservative choir master to despair.  That’s really a recommendation in my book.

The weekend after next my wife and I are attending the As One Voice Conference in Sydney. I’m hoping for some inspiration to get more motivated with our parish music program.  The As One Voice: The Next Generation is likely to feature prominently at the conference.   I’ve started going through the songs and will start blogging them soon.  So far several are actually singable, which is a start.  One or two are never going to be sung by a congregation due to severely overcomplicated music.

I am reminded of the controversy over the benefits of breast feeding over bottle feeding.  Of course breast is best but sometimes it isn’t just isn’t going to happen and it’s no use making the mother feel even worse by going on about.

Of course real musicians are better but just try to find them and get them to commit to playing.  Singing to some sort of canned backing is I fear going to become more common and I think it can be done in ways that are acceptable. 

What is often not appreciated is that is actually harder to sing to a backing than a real musician.  Human players can adjust to a group of singers, but no-one defeats a backing track – they always win.  You actually have to rehearse more with a backing track than the real thing.

Reason make some good points about this here but I’ll add my opinions for good measure.

Singing to CDs is the least best option.   These are not adaptable with respect to key, length and tempo and most are of underwhelming quality.

Professionally made backings are available but I don’t use them so I can’t comment.

MIDI is ancient technology but is easily editable to change key, tempo, etc and easy to learn how to use.  Many keyboards can record and play MIDI, which is good for keyboard players but no good for guitarists.  It is vital to use a good soundcard or it will sound awful and it has dreadful habit of sounding vastly different on different equipment. A solution to this is to convert the file to MP3. This makes it much larger but more predictable.  MIDI is OK for keyboard sounds but awful for guitar sounds.  MIDI has a problem in that it can be backwards engineered into sheet music and so is a copyright problem.

Better still is software such as Band in a Box that makes MIDI tracks easy to make and has, in the last few years, overcome MIDI cheesiness with their RealTracks. 

I use backings less than I used to although some of my old MIDI backings are still used at our Church by some music groups when their musicians are unavailable.  When I do use them I have updated them through a recent version of BIAB and convert them MP3s.

As an example, listen to David Haas’s “Table Song”, a favourite hymn at Church.  I must have done the original MIDI version years ago and kept just the melody and descant lines in a new version recently.  I tend to get rid of the melody line if the song is well known but they are useful for making sure you are still in the right place.

Table Song

It would make a great deal of sense to have a clearing house for exchanging the tracks made within a parish to other parishes.  If a way to do this that kept it to churches with copyright clearance could be found, I’m sure it would beneficial.

A few times a month I play at mass at the local Catholic Church. I play guitar and some family and friends lead the singing.  In the absence of further musical assistance I sometimes use backings I have made myself to help out.  It occurred to me that this must be a common enough activity and I thought there must be some blogs talking about the music we play in the Catholic Church.

There are, but few that go beyond slagging off anything that isn’t chant.  Others are very Cathedral based and divorced from the realities of small parishes with few resources.

It appears I have to create the blog I wanted to read and see where it takes me.  I’m happy to hear of other resources and I will link to those I find.

I’ll put up backing tracks of hymns from time to time and I plan to blog the new “As One Voice” Collection as I work my way through it.

Let’s see how it goes.