New hymn book

[Bernard Gui]

Does anyone have an update on the proposed new hymn book?

Edited May 7, 2021 by Bernard Gui

[rongo]

2 minutes ago, Bernard Gui said:

Does anyone have an update on the proposed new hymn book?

It sounded like it's years away, which suits me fine, because I think they're going to replace a lot of them with new ones. 

[bluebell]

The announcement that was made in 2018 said that the new hymnbook would be created "over the next several years" so we are probably still years away from getting it.  Considering that the entire world will then have only one hymnbook and one children's song book.  The final product could be really cool, or a big disaster.  

Guess we'll see.

[CV75]

9 minutes ago, Bernard Gui said:

Does anyone have an update on the proposed new hymn book?

It's still being vetted by petitions, phone calls, protests, rallies and marches.

[Calm]

I wonder if HiJolly might be aware of some info...not that the Choir and the Hymnbook overlap, but I think it likely some would be interested and may know those who are involved and ask them questions. By that standard, my nephew might know something as he plays in the Temple Square orchestra. I need to ask him about something. If I remember I will add this to that. 
 

But I suspect even if he does know, it will be they are still buried in making the piles of yes, no, and maybe...though they may be at winnowing through the maybes now. 

[Scott Lloyd]

53 minutes ago, Bernard Gui said:

Does anyone have an update on the proposed new hymn book?

 

47 minutes ago, bluebell said:

The announcement that was made in 2018 said that the new hymnbook would be created "over the next several years" so we are probably still years away from getting it.  Considering that the entire world will then have only one hymnbook and one children's song book.  The final product could be really cool, or a big disaster.  

Guess we'll see.

Given how long it took the current one to come to fruition, I don’t think you should hold your breath. 
 

For my part, I intend to settle back and enjoy the current one while we have it. 
 

And there is much to be enjoyed about it — and for many, to be discovered about it.  In sacrament meeting a Sunday or two ago, we sang a hymn I don’t think I had heard before. I found it very pleasing — more so than some of the 20-30 we sing all the time because we are sticks-in-the-mud and refuse to try anything unfamiliar. When the new one does come out, good luck trying to get the membership at large to sing the additions to it. 

Edited May 7, 2021 by Scott Lloyd

[rpn]

There was a report around a year ago that said they'd received many more submittals than they'd expected or got last time and they thought it would take longer to complete.

''

[Robert F. Smith]

3 hours ago, Calm said:

I wonder if HiJolly might be aware of some info...not that the Choir and the Hymnbook overlap, but I think it likely some would be interested and may know those who are involved and ask them questions. By that standard, my nephew might know something as he plays in the Temple Square orchestra. I need to ask him about something. If I remember I will add this to that. 
 

But I suspect even if he does know, it will be they are still buried in making the piles of yes, no, and maybe...though they may be at winnowing through the maybes now. 

Give it to the Relief Society Presidency and let them do their work.  Otherwise it will be death by committee.

[Stargazer]

1 hour ago, rpn said:

There was a report around a year ago that said they'd received many more submittals than they'd expected or got last time and they thought it would take longer to complete.

''

One of those was from my sister-in-law!

[Scott Lloyd]

2 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Give it to the Relief Society Presidency and let them do their work.  Otherwise it will be death by committee.

Last time they released one committee and called a new one before the work was finished. 

[Hamba Tuhan]

10 hours ago, Scott Lloyd said:

When the new one does come out, good luck trying to get the membership at large to sing the additions to it. 

We have been promised a hymnbook 'that reflects the diverse needs of the global Church in our day', including 'the best hymns and songs originating in other languages that will then be translated into English and the other languages of the world'.

I may well be wrong, but considering that 'members of the Church from 66 countries shared nearly 50,000 suggestions and more than 16,000 original hymns, songs and texts', I fully expect the new hymnbook to be more of a brand-new creation than something widely familiar to American Saints but with a few 'additions' for global flavour.

We already sing this one, translated, in our ward, and I fully expect it to be in the new hymnbook:

 

And I look forward to our sacrament meetings in future sounding something like this:

 

Or maybe even this:

 

[Stargazer]

6 hours ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

We already sing this one, translated, in our ward, and I fully expect it to be in the new hymnbook:

 

Is the version your ward sings available at all? I got goosebumps listening to it, and I've love to have the piano/organ music -- and is it translated into English?

[Peacefully]

7 hours ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

We have been promised a hymnbook 'that reflects the diverse needs of the global Church in our day', including 'the best hymns and songs originating in other languages that will then be translated into English and the other languages of the world'.

I may well be wrong, but considering that 'members of the Church from 66 countries shared nearly 50,000 suggestions and more than 16,000 original hymns, songs and texts', I fully expect the new hymnbook to be more of a brand-new creation than something widely familiar to American Saints but with a few 'additions' for global flavour.

We already sing this one, translated, in our ward, and I fully expect it to be in the new hymnbook:

 

And I look forward to our sacrament meetings in future sounding something like this:

 

Or maybe even this:

 

Yes please 🙌 

[Bernard Gui]

From my experience, there is no way to satisfy everyone’s taste in music, so putting together a collection that would appeal to folks across so many cultures will be a daunting task. Probably won’t happen in my lifetime. 

[Stargazer]

7 minutes ago, Bernard Gui said:

From my experience, there is no way to satisfy everyone’s taste in music, so putting together a collection that would appeal to folks across so many cultures will be a daunting task. Probably won’t happen in my lifetime. 

Well, if you survive to see it, perhaps this version of "Folofola mai 'a Sisu" will be in there:

 

[bluebell]

The hard part about a new hymnbook is that there is no good way for the saints to learn new songs.  In primary at least they teach one song a month and one brand new song a year usually (pre-pandemic) so at least the kids have a chance to broaden their horizons.

But nothing the church has tried to help the adults learn new songs has worked out.  So even if we get some great new songs from other cultures, singing them is probably going to end up worse than those times in sacrament meeting when the chorister goes rogue and tries to have us sing something no one has ever heard of.

Not pretty.

[rongo]

55 minutes ago, bluebell said:

The hard part about a new hymnbook is that there is no good way for the saints to learn new songs.  In primary at least they teach one song a month and one brand new song a year usually (pre-pandemic) so at least the kids have a chance to broaden their horizons.

But nothing the church has tried to help the adults learn new songs has worked out.  So even if we get some great new songs from other cultures, singing them is probably going to end up worse than those times in sacrament meeting when the chorister goes rogue and tries to have us sing something no one has ever heard of.

Not pretty.

The pendulum might swing back to song practice after sacrament meeting. Remember that? Then, the Church swung sharply against that. 

You're right --- learning new songs in a church setting will be difficult. Families can do it, if they make it a point of emphasis. We sang every single hymn for FHE over a period of (I want to say) two years or so. Maybe closer to three (opening and closing song). Our son in 11th grade is a professional composer (he's been paid to write a film score and an ad jingle, so far), and he can sight read and help us with the few tunes we don't know well. Then, we moved to the Children's Song Book for FHE, and we finish this week. We have our own internal family list of songs we hope/think might be retired.  

We had a branch choir in East Germany (a member came from Leipzig and worked with us for months), and learned some arrangements I still sing to this day. One of them was "Wie lang noch Herr, so heilig und wahr?" (Our current hymn #126, by Elder Widtsoe). We learned it faster and with a haunting minor key arrangement. I have really fond memories of learning and singing that song. I have not only never sung it in a meeting in my life, I've never found an LDS music buff who has ever heard the song. I'm pretty sure it's going to be on the outs. 

 

[Rain]

11 hours ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

We have been promised a hymnbook 'that reflects the diverse needs of the global Church in our day', including 'the best hymns and songs originating in other languages that will then be translated into English and the other languages of the world'.

I may well be wrong, but considering that 'members of the Church from 66 countries shared nearly 50,000 suggestions and more than 16,000 original hymns, songs and texts', I fully expect the new hymnbook to be more of a brand-new creation than something widely familiar to American Saints but with a few 'additions' for global flavour.

We already sing this one, translated, in our ward, and I fully expect it to be in the new hymnbook:

 

And I look forward to our sacrament meetings in future sounding something like this:

 

Or maybe even this:

 

It makes me wonder how much culture will still be there once you translate it to English and use an organ with them.  I think some American wards will be excited to try new things and some will express that excitement, but it will end up not sounding very different.

If my husband is music chair or chorister he will love and embrace the differences.  If our current chair is still there she may find some of those differences not very reverent and even if she loves them she may have a very difficult time thinking differently and making them sound like they were written.  

I personally am excited.

[Traela]

19 hours ago, Stargazer said:

One of those was from my sister-in-law!

One was from my daughter!

 

[Calm]

5 hours ago, bluebell said:

The hard part about a new hymnbook is that there is no good way for the saints to learn new songs.  In primary at least they teach one song a month and one brand new song a year usually (pre-pandemic) so at least the kids have a chance to broaden their horizons.

But nothing the church has tried to help the adults learn new songs has worked out.  So even if we get some great new songs from other cultures, singing them is probably going to end up worse than those times in sacrament meeting when the chorister goes rogue and tries to have us sing something no one has ever heard of.

Not pretty.

They have made a number of changes recently...I can see adding another one.  Why not a ward activity that teaches a couple of new songs...or suggesting learning the new songs be part of home Come Follow Me?  Create a youth project to learn the songs.  They have the music recorded on the church's website, if you can learn a pop song by listening to it on the radio, why not a hymn?

Edited May 8, 2021 by Calm

[bluebell]

48 minutes ago, Calm said:

They have made a number of changes recently...I can see adding another one.  Why not a ward activity that teaches a couple of new songs...or suggesting learning the new songs be part of home Come Follow Me?  Create a youth project to learn the songs.  They have the music recorded on the church's website, if you can learn a pop song by listening to it on the radio, why not a hymn?

I think the church will probably encourage all of those things in some form; I just doubt that many members will bother with it.  We aren't great at that kind of thing.  I know that many times my kids' primary has sent home CDs of the music for the primary program for them to listen too.  We have never actually ever used the CD. 

I know that many families would and do, but I don't think my reaction to them is that rare either.  I always mean well, but....

[Calm]

I can see a difference though if it isn’t the usual fare, but something rather novel. It might become quite popular with youth at least. 

[MrShorty]

8 hours ago, Bernard Gui said:

From my experience, there is no way to satisfy everyone’s taste in music, so putting together a collection that would appeal to folks across so many cultures will be a daunting task. Probably won’t happen in my lifetime. 

At the risk of offending the entire Correlation dept., is it necessary to have one single "TRUE" (TM) hymnal for the entire Church? It seems to me that one possible solution to the challenge of creating one hymnal for everyone is to have regional hymnals, or some other option for local choice.

[rongo]

2 hours ago, MrShorty said:

At the risk of offending the entire Correlation dept., is it necessary to have one single "TRUE" (TM) hymnal for the entire Church? It seems to me that one possible solution to the challenge of creating one hymnal for everyone is to have regional hymnals, or some other option for local choice.

They already have that. German-only songs in the German one (with many translations from the English one), Norwegian-only ones in the Norwegian one, and so on. 

This is more of a multi-culturalism push, and a nod to those who've been pushing for more upbeat rhythms, diversity, etc.

What will be interesting is what the sacred cows will be. Elder Steven Snow (who was a missionary in my dad's mission), who gave a conference talk about hymns that was pretty much his stake conference talk in our stake, is a huge fan of hymns and the hymn book. He told us (this wasn't in the conference talk) about behind-the-scenes politics and turf battles among the Brethren when it came to hymns in the "new" one back in 1985. Elder McConkie insisted that "I Believe in Christ" be in it, and that the music remain unaltered and all verses included (there had been attempts to whittle it down a bit and/or change the music to make it better, but he wasn't having any of it). Elder Packer also had some non-negotiable songs that were going to be in it, end of story. There were some nepotism pieces that benefited family and friends. It was very interesting to hear about some of this; kind of like intrigues in medieval Italy among the Borgias or the de Medicis. 

The "committee" will make recommendations, but I think in the end, some nepotistic "pork" will be in there along with the multicultural updates. Maybe a Gladys Knight update of some songs. And certainly some pioneer standbys will remain, too. 

Edited May 9, 2021 by rongo

[Calm]

40 minutes ago, MrShorty said:

At the risk of offending the entire Correlation dept., is it necessary to have one single "TRUE" (TM) hymnal for the entire Church? It seems to me that one possible solution to the challenge of creating one hymnal for everyone is to have regional hymnals, or some other option for local choice.

They are creating a basic smaller hymnal to use worldwide with additional pieces that can be digitally downloaded to add local pieces.  My memory says that additions can be made to the digital file later on.