It's been a hymnody nightmare week, as earlier posts express. I begin to realise that I know far more hymns and songs than most people I come into contact with, and that the good people of Dibley probably sing a much wider rnage of material than most local churches. Apart from the refusal to sing BPW 200 at D+2, I've also had conversations with the pianist at a church about 10 miles away to change half the material I'd chosen for them to sing, and most of the tunes on the rest. This did have a different feel, as his logic was that the congregation would be under 20 and are not strong singers rather than 'I'm not singing/playing that.' Laudate Omnes Gentes (BPW 19) was a new song too far, it seems, which is a shame as it's easy to learn and being from Taize has a great 'evening' feel to it.
All this has got me wondering just how large (or small) is the active repetoire of most churches these days. When SOF runs to almost 1700 items, arguably it should be enormous - in fact on the whole it seems to be tiny. When this is coupled with the 'newer is automatically better' attitude to music, people even forget what they sang regularly only a year or two back.
In a typical week, with one service, my lot will sing around seven items - at least three of which will be hymns and two or three will probably be single verse songs; quite often (at least once a month) we sing something that's new to some people, if not all of us. When we have joint services elsewhere it may be as few as four items. Over a year I suspect we repeat about 10 items, which gives us an annual repetoire of around 300 different hymns and songs. What is scary is that that is probably ten times that of some of our near neighbours. I just wonder which is more typical - and why?
Laudate Omne Gentes, Laudate Dominum - Praise all people, praise the Lord! That's really what we are doing whenever we sing - and whatever we sing - just wish it didn't become the gladiatorial arena it so often seems to be.
Now I really do need to let this go and move on before I get bitter and twisted.
Comments
I love that Taize song.....our repetoire is limited by the ability of the one musician and the limited, to no, interaction my folk have with anything outside their own church. I also feel I am losing touch sometimes which is why I am greateful when I go to other events - Assembly, EMBA etc - if the music is varied though sadly it rarely is as varied as it used to be. Assembly in particular seems to have gone backwards in its breadth and variety of music used!