Singing in Community
9 May 2008 - 5 אייר 5768 by Huw
The folks over at All Saints Company have posted 18 Videos of a capella-style group singing to show how easy it is to ditch the organ, the hymn book AND the over-head projector with the guitar and actually sing in community. These are from their “Music that Makes Community” workshops. (There is another one coming up in Iowa)
My favourite is this one from my friend, Ana:
Watch all the videos: *anyone* can do this. And what a joy it is to hear the human voice rendered unto God and supported (rather than drowned out) by the occasional instrument - drum, rattle, etc.
From your former own backyard (in western N Carolina)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIS9DF6ti4w
It’s not exactly “church, but it is community. We do use a book, though.
I thought of your tradition there. ANd, of course, that whole tradition grew out of church - same way exactly.
How is the Mrs? She’s been on my prayer list.
Your prayers very timely. She had the gastric bypass surgery yesterday. Prayers and her vigorous preparation have helped her have a good go of it so far. Thank you. I’ll tell her.
Did you know? I ask because she told me a person in India, whom she had no contact with for years had e-mailed her just the other day about it.
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As far as “my” tradition, check this out from some folks who were not thrilled with all that singing going on..
“At first the traditional churches embraced the new idea, but soon it became obvious to the leadership that this may indeed be too much of a “good thing”. The “singing” seemed to take on a life of its own as people became excited about their new found abilities. Singing Schools not sponsored by the church grew up across the countryside and social gatherings outside the direct control of the Puritan leaders began to become commonplace. Soon stories of a friendly “mixing of the sexes” came to the ears of elders, and an aura of some never quite explained moral “risk” fell upon the Singings and their promoters. A “backlash” of sorts had also developed among the educated purveyors of music, who believed this primitive form was a threat to the “real” reading of music, and these forces combined to find the Hymnals using the Fasola “banned” from the churches by the 1760s. A pamphlet was circulated as early as 1722 which outlined the objections:
1. It is a new way, an unknown tongue.
2. It is not so melodious as the usual way.
3. There are so many tunes we shall never have done learning them.
4. The practice creates disturbances and causes people to behave indecently and disorderly.
5. It is Quakerish and Popish and introductive on instrumental music.
6. The names given to the notes are bawdy, yea blasphemous (i.e., fa-sol-la-mi, etc.)
7. It is a needless way, since our fathers got to heaven without it.
8. It is a contrivance to get money.
9. People spend too much time learning it, they tarry out nights disorderly.
10. They are a company of young upstarts that fall in with this way, and some of them are lewd and loose persons. [Leonard Ellenwood, The History of American Church Music, p. 20]
Are you sure that you were quoting from Puritans in that last quote? I thought I was reading some of my fellow Orthodox! LOL.
Yes, Father. I could be o template for “I’m Against It!” manifestos, of all sorts.
I puzzle over #5 - Quakerish AND Popish.
I love that: Fa sol la is bawdy and blasphemous.
No miracle: She sent an email and asked me to pray for her…
So very interesting to me given that the church I pastor does not use instrumentation, though we do use hymnals, from the three traditions we are seeking to affiliate with. I do at times find it distracting now when I attend a church that has an organ, piano or guitar accompanying congregational singing.