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Eccles: New hymns?

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  • AlbertusAlbertus Shipmate
    I'm glad to be corrected. Must just be my bad luck that everywhere I go I seem to encounter the products of K-v-n M-yh-w (we don't write the name in full for fear of summoning him up).
  • A couple of years ago I took part in a small anti-Trump political demonstration in Ipswich. After the meeting an elderlyish man came up to me and thanked me for my participation. We had a pleasant conversation and, when I ask his name, it turned out that he was the "real" Kevin Mayhew!
  • Interesting discussion as most of the music mentioned is not "new" by any stretch of the imagination.

    There are good and bad hymns in every generation of hymn writers. There was crap written by Victorians just as much as some lyrics today. Some tunes from earlier times are un-singable by most folks in churches, while some newer ones are very low (even although many musicologists support the theory that voices have become lower in timbre).

    Much depends on where your musical interests lie.

    I would rather sing a hymn that has a tune that is easy to follow (like much traditional folk music - even Luther used folk music, although we now usually sing it too slow) with lyrics that mean something to me.

    At college we were sometimes asked to sing a certain hymn that had lyrics; "I was deep in sin, until Jesus rescued me and now I'm as happy as a bird and just as free" My friends and I just stood at the back going "tweet, tweet" !

    There are some hymns that I refuse to sing or miss out certain words because they aren't relevant to me and singing them would be a lie (maybe not for others) or else they are so twee that they make me cringe.

    Some of the music mentioned could not be sung by ordinary congregations so can it be classified as hymns?
  • EnochEnoch Shipmate
    WildHaggis, thank you for that. I don't think I've encountered that hymn. I would have remembered it. It deserves your response.

    One of the oddest hymn lines - and yes, I do know the biblical reference, but it still sounds odd - is the chorus that starts 'Pierce my ear O Lord'. Does the Almighty, King of Kings, Lord of Hosts also do finger nails?

    More seriously, I agree with both your point about good and bad hymns from every generation and preferring singable tunes. Time has thinned out much of the dross from earlier generations. That hasn't happened yet to the current stuff. 'Singability' and its absence is one of the most effective thinning agents.

    Another issue, though, is that I think that in my lifetime, there has been a shift in what makes popular music popular. Until about 40 years ago, it tended to be melody that was dominant, rather than rhythm. Songwriters started with the melody and built the rhythm that supported it. It comes as quite a surprise to those of us who straddle the change when we discover that it's now the other way round - one starts with the rhythm and builds the rest of the song round it.
  • AlbertusAlbertus Shipmate
    A couple of years ago I took part in a small anti-Trump political demonstration in Ipswich. After the meeting an elderlyish man came up to me and thanked me for my participation. We had a pleasant conversation and, when I ask his name, it turned out that he was the "real" Kevin Mayhew!
    There's a claim to fame! I suppose I'd rather be with Mayhew demonstrating against Trump than with Trump demonstrating against Mayhew- but that's not saying much, is it? :smiley:
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