Hymnary advice
Piglet
All Saints Host, Circus Host
I hope Eccles is the right place for this.
The subject of hymnbooks came up at our Vestry meeting tonight, and the fact that some of ours are falling to bits.
The Rector raised the possibility of rather than just replacing them, possibly getting a completely new book, and asked me to look into it.
Much as I loathe The Orange Book™ (Complete Anglican Hymns Old and New), I'm not sure what it would be replaced by; I'm not very familiar with Anglican books apart from those used in the Church of Ireland and the Anglican Church of Canada.
It needs to be fairly broad in its scope: she won't swallow anything that hasn't got a chunk of chorus -type stuff in it, but I'd want a decent amount of traditional hymns as well, preferably not too messed about with.
Any advice would be welcome.
The subject of hymnbooks came up at our Vestry meeting tonight, and the fact that some of ours are falling to bits.
The Rector raised the possibility of rather than just replacing them, possibly getting a completely new book, and asked me to look into it.
Much as I loathe The Orange Book™ (Complete Anglican Hymns Old and New), I'm not sure what it would be replaced by; I'm not very familiar with Anglican books apart from those used in the Church of Ireland and the Anglican Church of Canada.
It needs to be fairly broad in its scope: she won't swallow anything that hasn't got a chunk of chorus -type stuff in it, but I'd want a decent amount of traditional hymns as well, preferably not too messed about with.
Any advice would be welcome.
Comments
New English Hymnal still seems to have its fans, though having grown up with HA&M and MP I've often encountered hymns with considerably different words to what I'm used to. It's also nearly 40 years old and quite lacking in the "chorus" genre.
You can get the Church of Scotland Hymnary under, as it were, plain covers as "Hymns of Glory, Songs of Praise". It's obviously heavier on psalms and paraphrases than most Anglican hymnbooks, and John Bell's hand is fairly evident in the compilation (for good and/or ill). There's a fair mix of older and relatively modern songs, but it is 20 years old now.
Hymns Ancient and Modern also have an updated version but I'm not familiar with the content.
Would Vestry authorise the purchase of a words copy of the various options for review?
I think one also has to realise that hymnbooks seem to be a dying species - for instance the Baptists and the URC haven't produced one since the 1980s. I think this is because church sizes (and the number of churches) are shrinking, because congregations don't want to be restricted to one book, and because many churches have gone over to projected hymns and/or bespoke Sunday hymnsheets.
You might have a look at CH4/"Hymns of glory", I'd say that John Bell's hand is very evident in it ... but you are in Scotland!
IIRC, Mayhew's Orange Book has been replaced by a much more recent edition - it might be worth looking at, to see if there are any major differences.
I think, like Bible translations, families of hymn books (particularly ones like HO&N that have so many versions in quick succession) tend to be consistent in approach. In this case, I fear, that means aggressive "modernising" of words.
My understanding is that use of the NEH sends a strong signal that this church is liberal/progressive and catholic.
Yes, I think you're possibly right - in which case it would do well at a Place like @Piglet's...AIUI, that is the general ethos of the Scottish Episcopal Church.
FWIW, if it were up to me, I'd eschew the use of a Gradual Hymn before the Gospel, so that only four hymns (or three congregational hymns, and a Communion motet by cantor or choir) would be required. One advantage of the Mayhew books (IMHO) is that they include a number of singable Mass settings.
It includes a number of new hymns set to familiar tunes, many by Timothy Dudley-Smith, which is a good way of increasing the congregation's repertoire without them having to learn new music - useful if there is no choir available.
It does have some oddities, but on the whole is less annoying than many other offerings.
I thought it was the original EH that was delivered unto St Percy?
So it was.
There's 847 hymns, songs, and chants to choose from. I know, I played at least one verse of every single one of them over 13 hours for a sponsored event a couple of years ago.
A-C yes, liberal/progressive definitely not necessarily - at least not in England. But I think it depends on your local area, and how you define "liberal". In Scotland, I'd imagine you're right.
I think there are still some conservative ACs in Aberdeen & Orkney diocese. That was one of the sources of disquiet around the appointment of the current bishop.
Just from your comments, A&M Hymns and Songs looks promising, as does Hymns of Glory, Songs of Praise. As @Arethosemyfeet says, we are, after all, in Scotland, and I'm a sucker for a metrical psalm or paraphrase! When we were talking about it last night, CH4 was mentioned, although only in passing ...
I shall investigate further and report back - again, thank you!
Myself, I like some of the material that is coming out of GIA Publications. Also, the Oregon Catholic Press (OCP) is good.
I am with you about happy clappy, but I think GIA and OCP have some decent music that is not necessarily that type of stuff.
I wouldn't be surprised if my parish alone has sufficient spare copies to supply a church, now that we've closed / sold off three of our linked churches. We'd get rid of our scruffier copies first, of course, so they might not be much of an improvement.
I'm honestly not quite sure what Rev'd Rosie's getting at; she didn't seem to be a bit interested in replacing it until someone pointed out (rather out of the blue) that some of our copies were falling to bits.
I can't remember offhand what the rule was; I think there may have been a chronological cut-off point, but as it turned out, when the book came out, a lot of the buggering-about which had been vetoed by David and other sensible people on the committee was reinstated by the happy-clappy crowd. He was Not Pleased ...
We did get the new hymnal, but we are often bringing in new hymns not in the book. We maintain the One License permission as well as the CCLI license too. Well worth the costs.
I know that our late Reader, who started doing this, was very meticulous about copyright, and FatherInCharge continues to be careful. I don't think the cards include the music, though.
We give the words-only NEH to the congregation - therefore not having to print words in the service sheet and cutting down on paper use. It does limit us to what we have in there. There are a few from the 'orange book' which must be Hymns Ancient and Modern which we still print.
(We also need to make a decion on which anthem books to keep - we have a variety of very old ones that are more difficult to read and therefore use)
However the repertoire is not static and that excludes the hymns that have fallen into disuse. Plus there are those that are only know to one or two people in the congregation but if chosen the congregation would pick up quickly simply because these people knew the hymn and could carry them. My guess is this leaves you close on 800 hymns which is not bad for a hymnal. Unfortunately nobody has a good list which includes all 800 hymns.
The majority of new hymnody has a "sing-by" date. The thing is that with historic hymnody that what has survived is that without a "sing-by" date! Anyone for "God of concrete, God of steel" or "Every star shall sing a carol" from the 1970s?. None are fading quicker today, I would suggest, than the modern hymns of the late twentieth, early twenty-first century. By it the amount of controversy that it can still kick up almost forty years after publication, I would say "Shine Jesus, Shine" is not dated. So it is not a genre that makes hymns disposable.
Much as I don't like it, it may be a case of better the devil you know, and it would certainly be easier to replace the falling-to-bits books piecemeal than to replace the whole lot.
There may be some more thinking to do.
The congregation makes do with the words-only book, but it does include the melody line for the various Mass settings.
I’ll admit a very soft spot for “Every Star Shall Sing a Carol.” At least on this side of The Pond, I think the reason it started being left out of hymnals after having been included is directly related to there not being a suitable and poetic way to alter “God above, man below.” (I have tried without success.) The denominations that once embraced “Every Star” have also moved to avoiding using “man” to mean “human.”
That depends on how many, if any, of your choir will be singing other than the tune. When I started in the church choir the congregation had words-only and the choir had melody editions, with only the organist in possession of a full music edition. The Kirk was unusual when launching CH4 that it pushed for the melody edition to be the "standard" version. The only words copies we have are personal ones bought by elderly church members who found the melody version too heavy.
Tell that to the bloke who chose "Jesus put this song into our hearts"* today
*Aka "This is yet another boring Kendrick song"
It's a fine song for when the congregation won't sing unaccompanied and all you have is a strumming guitarist.