Musical Instruments

[Josh]

It isn't clear to me that instruments threaten one's ability to sing parts, or four parts. It really doesn't need to be an "either/or."

I prefer to do an analysis of what has actually happened. We have very convenient case studies of groups of people who know 4 part singing and then adopt instruments in worship.

What happens? They uniformly end up losing 4 part singing, because nobody sees fit to practice it anymore. It dies out.

Of course, if your denomination relies on a steady influx of people from churches that maintain acapella singing, this won't happen, but it should be obvious why that is an even bigger problem.

[mike]

My guess is that singing ability is probably broadly improving in conservative Anabaptist churches. Many older people in these churches went to public schools or private schools where group singing skills were not as developed, and perhaps only a minority learned to read music. In contrast, younger people have been schooled in singing and music in private schools, and have practiced singing in youth group and church settings for several generations at this point.

Add to that the number of music schools and camps and the proliferation of community and church choirs, some with with trained directors and singers, and you have a much better quality of musical ability than there was 50 years ago in these churches.

And then there is development in the music we have access to. I would argue that we have much better material available to sing these days. For what we used to be stuck with, look no further than the Christian Hymnal or Zion's Praises, with their preponderance of turn of the century American Protestant gospel songs, the old version of Christian Contemporary Music.

[ken_sylvania]

My guess is that singing ability is probably broadly improving in conservative Anabaptist churches. Many older people in these churches went to public schools or private schools where group singing skills were not as developed, and perhaps only a minority learned to read music. In contrast, younger people have been schooled in singing and music in private schools, and have practiced singing in youth group and church settings for several generations at this point.

Add to that the number of music schools and camps and the proliferation of community and church choirs, some with with trained directors and singers, and you have a much better quality of musical ability than there was 50 years ago in these churches.

And then there is development in the music we have access to. I would argue that we have much better material available to sing these days. For what we used to be stuck with, look no further than the Christian Hymnal or Zion's Praises, with their preponderance of turn of the century American Protestant gospel songs, the old version of Christian Contemporary Music.

I would suggest that you look a bit further than those two books and at least acknowledge that the Church Hymnal and Christian Hymnary were available. I'm not convinced that the Church Hymnal selection is inferior to what is found in any of the newer hymnbooks.

[mike]

My guess is that singing ability is probably broadly improving in conservative Anabaptist churches. Many older people in these churches went to public schools or private schools where group singing skills were not as developed, and perhaps only a minority learned to read music. In contrast, younger people have been schooled in singing and music in private schools, and have practiced singing in youth group and church settings for several generations at this point.

Add to that the number of music schools and camps and the proliferation of community and church choirs, some with with trained directors and singers, and you have a much better quality of musical ability than there was 50 years ago in these churches.

And then there is development in the music we have access to. I would argue that we have much better material available to sing these days. For what we used to be stuck with, look no further than the Christian Hymnal or Zion's Praises, with their preponderance of turn of the century American Protestant gospel songs, the old version of Christian Contemporary Music.

I would suggest that you look a bit further than those two books and at least acknowledge that the Church Hymnal and Christian Hymnary were available. I'm not convinced that the Church Hymnal selection is inferior to what is found in any of the newer hymnbooks.

Valid point. You're right about the Church Hymnal. I am not sure how widely it was/is used compared to the others I mentioned. As for the Christian Hymnary, the biggest issue I see with it is that only a couple hundred of the 1,000 songs are used, at best, because much of the music is for special purposes or just not used much for whatever reason. About 20 years ago I did a study of the Hymnary, and found that only about 400 at most were ever sung at all in our congregation, and of those, only 150-200 were used regularly. There is a LOT of music in the Hymnary that just isn't touched. And possibly with good reason, but I can't really say what that might be without looking at it again. My impression is that much of it is just sort of unsingable, very long and tedious in phrasing and somewhat uninspiring or at least not memorable musically, regardless of how good its content might be.

My uncle once asked me why a Mennonite church wouldn't obviously use the Christian Hymnary, with all its great Anabaptist martyr hymns. I asked him which one of those hymns their church sings, and he could not name a single one. But we do like having them in our hymnals, I suppose.

[ken_sylvania]

My guess is that singing ability is probably broadly improving in conservative Anabaptist churches. Many older people in these churches went to public schools or private schools where group singing skills were not as developed, and perhaps only a minority learned to read music. In contrast, younger people have been schooled in singing and music in private schools, and have practiced singing in youth group and church settings for several generations at this point.

Add to that the number of music schools and camps and the proliferation of community and church choirs, some with with trained directors and singers, and you have a much better quality of musical ability than there was 50 years ago in these churches.

And then there is development in the music we have access to. I would argue that we have much better material available to sing these days. For what we used to be stuck with, look no further than the Christian Hymnal or Zion's Praises, with their preponderance of turn of the century American Protestant gospel songs, the old version of Christian Contemporary Music.

I would suggest that you look a bit further than those two books and at least acknowledge that the Church Hymnal and Christian Hymnary were available. I'm not convinced that the Church Hymnal selection is inferior to what is found in any of the newer hymnbooks.

Valid point. You're right about the Church Hymnal. I am not sure how widely it was/is used compared to the others I mentioned. As for the Christian Hymnary, the biggest issue I see with it is that only a couple hundred of the 1,000 songs are used, at best, because much of the music is for special purposes or just not used much for whatever reason. About 20 years ago I did a study of the Hymnary, and found that only about 400 at most were ever sung at all in our congregation, and of those, only 150-200 were used regularly. There is a LOT of music in the Hymnary that just isn't touched. And possibly with good reason, but I can't really say what that might be without looking at it again. My impression is that much of it is just sort of unsingable, very long and tedious in phrasing and somewhat uninspiring or at least not memorable musically, regardless of how good its content might be.

My uncle once asked me why a Mennonite church wouldn't obviously use the Christian Hymnary, with all its great Anabaptist martyr hymns. I asked him which one of those hymns their church sings, and he could not name a single one. But we do like having them in our hymnals, I suppose.

Yes, a lot of the songs in the Hymnary are just... heavy. It has some very valuable songs in it that just aren't in any of the other books, but it is not my preference for use as a church songbook - at least not if there is going to be only one book in the rack. But on the other hand, I personally don't think the Purple Martin book is much better as a church songbook.

[mike]

Yes, a lot of the songs in the Hymnary are just... heavy. It has some very valuable songs in it that just aren't in any of the other books, but it is not my preference for use as a church songbook - at least not if there is going to be only one book in the rack. But on the other hand, I personally don't think the Purple Martin book is much better as a church songbook.

Heavy is a good word to describe it. I wouldn't describe the Purple Martin book in the same way. I think the content is much more broadly singable, and it even includes a fair amount of gospel songs to meet the expectations of many conservative churches of the "old hymns" a songbook should include. I think John's goal was to have a book full of music the average church would actually use. When we got that book, I was impressed how much my parents actually liked it because it contained a very nice blend of songs they were familiar with along with material that was new to them.

And don't forget The Mennonite Hymnal. I personally like that book very much from the little experience I had with it, mainly at Faith Builders. But I remember John describing the Mennonite Hymnal as having been a sort of idealistic compilation of "high brow" music. And as such, it largely failed to take hold in the general Mennonite Church, which was heading away from a cappella singing in church anyway. In contrast, the sales success of Hymns of the Church seems to show that it isn't in the category of music too high or heavy for general church use.

[ken_sylvania]

Yes, a lot of the songs in the Hymnary are just... heavy. It has some very valuable songs in it that just aren't in any of the other books, but it is not my preference for use as a church songbook - at least not if there is going to be only one book in the rack. But on the other hand, I personally don't think the Purple Martin book is much better as a church songbook.

Heavy is a good word to describe it. I wouldn't describe the Purple Martin book in the same way. I think the content is much more broadly singable, and it even includes a fair amount of gospel songs to meet the expectations of many conservative churches of the "old hymns" a songbook should include. I think John's goal was to have a book full of music the average church would actually use. When we got that book, I was impressed how much my parents actually liked it because it contained a very nice blend of songs they were familiar with along with material that was new to them.

And don't forget The Mennonite Hymnal. I personally like that book very much from the little experience I had with it, mainly at Faith Builders. But I remember John describing the Mennonite Hymnal as having been a sort of idealistic compilation of "high brow" music. And as such, it largely failed to take hold in the general Mennonite Church, which was heading away from a cappella singing in church anyway. In contrast, the sales success of Hymns of the Church seems to show that it isn't in the category of music too high or heavy for general church use.

I'm not familiar with the Mennonite Hymnal.
I didn't mean to imply that Hymns of the Church is heavy music. I actually very much enjoy singing out of it, especially for family singing, youth singing, or song service. It's hard for me to put into words why I wouldn't choose it for regular worship service - it just doesn't seem to have as good a selection of the stately, majestic hymns maybe.

[joshuabgood]

It isn't clear to me that instruments threaten one's ability to sing parts, or four parts. It really doesn't need to be an "either/or."

I prefer to do an analysis of what has actually happened. We have very convenient case studies of groups of people who know 4 part singing and then adopt instruments in worship.

What happens? They uniformly end up losing 4 part singing, because nobody sees fit to practice it anymore. It dies out.

Of course, if your denomination relies on a steady influx of people from churches that maintain acapella singing, this won't happen, but it should be obvious why that is an even bigger problem.

Maybe this is descriptive of a very small subset of groups, however, I find that when people learn instruments they actually become much better singers and musicians. And the best singing, acapella groups, almost without fail, also have myriads of instrument players in their groups (like Mike), they just don't use them in church. However, there isn't a causal relationship of any sort.

Causation is mostly likely getting mixed up with correlation in a small subset of groups. But there is a reason that say Handel's music, all choruses four part, are not in fact acapella or such that folks who sing that type of music can't also sing in 4 part well. Same with say the Lyrica Sacra influence here at Lancaster - it doesn't dilute the four part singing, but enhances it.

[joshuabgood]

The Purple Martin, the Church Hymnal, and the Mennonite Hymnal - are all representations of Swiss-Germanic cultural and artistic druthers. It doesn't make them right, wrong, or any such - it is just what they are.

That said, it doesn't register with all cultures uniformly and even for those like me, (and I am deeply familiar with all three of the above), it feels staid, dead, and just slow and unlively at times - even though I love a lot (all of the music), being a good Swiss-German myself. It's a tough sell though to expect all cultures to love it the same way we do.

[mike]

I'm not familiar with the Mennonite Hymnal.
I didn't mean to imply that Hymns of the Church is heavy music. I actually very much enjoy singing out of it, especially for family singing, youth singing, or song service. It's hard for me to put into words why I wouldn't choose it for regular worship service - it just doesn't seem to have as good a selection of the stately, majestic hymns maybe.

Interesting. I would have thought the opposite. Our bishop said that HOTC really has a lot of the modern fast songs (his congregation uses HOTC). It had me scratching my head. Much of our impression might come from the songs that song leaders actually choose in the service, and think about how few songs we actually sing relative to the number that are in the books. In our church, I would estimate this is about what we sing in a year:

Sunday: 4 songs x 52 = 208
Wednesday: 2 songs x 12 = 24
Sunday night: 2 songs x 12 = 24
Special meetings & events: = 30

Total = 300, shall we say.

And a lot of these are certainly repeats. It could take 2-5 years to sing through an entire songbook, depending on the book, if we would decide to sing every hymn in the book. In my opinion, we should sing more than we do, but that's where we are.

If a song leader favors a certain style of song, and primarily leads those, it probably lends to impressions about a book that aren't entirely accurate.