Change to handbook, 19.3.6 RE: music in sacrament mtg

[Calm]

5 minutes ago, Amulek said:

I think the Hymnal-only movement was sort of a push-back against all of that Janice Crap Perry stuff that was gaining popularity several years ago. I'm fine with them laying off the brakes a bit, but there's still a lot of "popular" stuff that you might find at Deseret Book that I still wouldn't want to listen to at church.

Possibly due to Godspell and other popular semi religious musicals as well. There was some stink about that, at least in California. My family sang “All Good Things” with my brother playing guitar shortly before he went on his mission and I remember seeing “Day by Day” enough times I was getting bored by it. I remember the guitar exclusion happening at least for the first time after that, (early 70’s), but I could be wrong. 

[Chum]

1 hour ago, Amulek said:

Most overrated song of all time.

Yeah, I said it. #SorryNotSorry

 

In the 1980s I wanted to launch a radio station that played nothing but Freebird and StH back to back. I was fairly certain no one would notice.

[Scott Lloyd]

4 hours ago, Fether said:

I do love a good song about fonts

 

4 hours ago, InCognitus said:

Do you prefer sans seraph fonts , or with seraph(im)?

 

4 hours ago, Fether said:

If you could play a song about Comic Sans, I would be ecstatic! But that may be a little too irreverent for sacrament meeting.

😂 😆 😝 

[MiserereNobis]

3 hours ago, Navidad said:

Did you ever see the movie Cold Mountain? It features Church of Christ or Baptist groups singing shape notes. I loved that part of the movie.

I know a guy (we sometimes chat at the brew pub) who sang on that movie’s sound track. He’s an atheist, but he LOVES singing shape notes. 

[Hamba Tuhan]

52 minutes ago, Amulek said:

I think the Hymnal-only movement was sort of a push-back against all of that Janice Crap Perry stuff that was gaining popularity several years ago. I'm fine with them laying off the brakes a bit, but there's still a lot of "popular" stuff that you might find at Deseret Book that I still wouldn't want to listen to at church.

Yep. Quoting from the Handbook: 'Sacred music that is written or sung in culturally diverse musical styles may help unify congregations. Music coordinators and priesthood leaders may include a variety of appropriate musical styles that appeal to members of various backgrounds'. 

I'm just not sure that Mormonised Christian pop fits the definition of 'sacred music that is written or sung in culturally diverse musical styles'.

I was in charge of our ward's Christmas Day service this year -- which admittedly isn't a sacrament meeting -- but we had 'O Come, O Come, Emmanuel' performed after one of the narrators read out two of its verses.

In my first ward as a missionary, which was about 75 per cent former Catholics, we actually sang this in sacrament meeting! It was my first exposure to it, and I've loved it ever since. In my opinion, it fits the description. But so does this:

And this (which we have sung in our ward):

And this (which was sung in our last stake conference):

 

[MiserereNobis]

3 minutes ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

I was in charge of our ward's Christmas Day service this year -- which admittedly isn't a sacrament meeting -- but we had 'O Come, O Come, Emmanuel' performed after one of the narrators read out two of its verses

Technically, this is an advent song, not a Christmas song, so you sang it a day too late 😉

Our Gregorian chant schola sang it during mass a couple of Sundays ago. It’s a beautiful song that made it from Catholic monastic liturgy to mainstream culture  

Did you perchance sing it in the original Latin?

[Hamba Tuhan]

1 minute ago, MiserereNobis said:

Technically, this is an advent song, not a Christmas song, so you sang it a day too late 😉

I'm aware of that and even noted it in the script.

Quote

Did you perchance sing it in the original Latin?

I wish! We didn't sing it at all -- it was instead performed by a string trio -- because we are limited at this point to using the Church's music app for lyrics. That's why I had one of the narrators read out the following verses (plus the refrain):

O come, O come, Emmanuel
And ransom captive Israel
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear.

O come, Thou Dayspring, come and cheer
Our spirits by Thine advent here.
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night
And death's dark shadows put to flight.

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

The context was that, after two very difficult years, our hearts may well be yearning for the presence of the Lord, as expressed in the well-known advent hymn.

But yeah, when I'm singing this in the shower, it's always in Latin!

[Scott Lloyd]

On 12/29/2021 at 9:36 AM, bsjkki said:

 

We had ‘Mary did you know’ sung Sunday. My spouse despises that song. He says, the scriptures are quite clear that Mary knew. She saw an angel and all that.

 

I’ve heard that objection before, and it strikes me as simplistic quibbling. One could have a broad understanding of the mission of the Savior and yet not immediately grasp in detail all of its implications.
 

The sense I get is that not even the chief apostles understood it all right away, but that their knowledge grew incrementally over time with the unfolding of the events of Jesus’s mortal ministry, His crucifixion and resurrection. Even thereafter, there was much that they did not know, and they required yet more instruction at the feet of the resurrected Christ. 
 

As for the scriptural account of the angel’s visit to Mary, I don’t get the sense that she was given, on that occasion, an in-depth theological course about the mission of the Messiah. By some accounts, she might only have been about 14 at the time. How much could a person of that age be expected to grasp, even after a visit from an angel? The 14-year-old Joseph Smith, even after the First Vision, required extensive instruction. 
 

And regardless of what Mary may or may not have known, the lyrics of the song don’t express denial, they only ask questions that could reasonably be understood as being rhetorical in nature. They amount to a thought exercise exploring how it might have felt to have given birth to and provided maternal care to the Savior of mankind in His mortal infancy. 
 

As with all art, appreciation of music and poetry is nothing if not subjective, there is no accounting for taste, and one is free to despise this or any other song. But the above strikes me as not a very solid reason for doing so. 
 

Edited January 1, 2022 by Scott Lloyd

[DispensatorMysteriorum]

We had a Euphonium solo in our ward last Sunday of "O Holy Night."  It was beautiful. This was approved by the bishop (who I happen to know really, really, really well....) before the handbook was updated. It was very exciting to see the handbook changed after the decision was made but before the solo happened. 

[Scott Lloyd]

14 minutes ago, DispensatorMysteriorum said:

We had a Euphonium solo in our ward last Sunday of "O Holy Night."  It was beautiful. This was approved by the bishop (who I happen to know really, really, really well....) before the handbook was updated. It was very exciting to see the handbook changed after the decision was made but before the solo happened. 

We’ve had a bassoon solo performed in our sacrament meeting before, not quite like a euphonium, I know, but unusual, notwithstanding. The performer is a member of the Orchestra at Temple Square. 

 

[MustardSeed]

29 minutes ago, DispensatorMysteriorum said:

We had a Euphonium solo in our ward last Sunday of "O Holy Night."  It was beautiful. This was approved by the bishop (who I happen to know really, really, really well....) before the handbook was updated. It was very exciting to see the handbook changed after the decision was made but before the solo happened. 

Lovely.

[Scott Lloyd]

On 12/29/2021 at 3:13 PM, Amulek said:

This is not uncommon - largely because the Venn diagram of (1) people who can play the piano/organ and are (2) cable of coming to church early (3) every Sunday and (4) able to sit on the stand away from their families tends to intersect squarely on elderly women who just can't keep the tempo like they used to. 

As a long time percussionist, I can say that starting out slow and then dragging ever slower is one of my musical pet peeves.

That being said, every time I start to feel this way I simply remind myself of how much better Sister So-and-so is doing than I could do in her place. And if she isn't an amazing instrumentalist, she's likely doing the best she can - and doing so completely thanklessly I might add.

Seriously, it's not like any musician can get up and perform in front of a room full of people and not know that they are playing too slowly or making any number of other mistakes. They know. And they still get up there every week - even though they know almost everyone in the congregation is siting there thinking that they aren't doing a good enough job. It's kind of heartbreaking when you think of it like that.

 

Very astute observations, these. 
 

I will comment that such problems are largely eliminated/avoided when (1) the accompanist is able and willing to take direction from the chorister as opposed to setting his/her own tempo, failing to hold notes for their full count, failing to begin on the downbeat or end with the cutoff, etc., and (2) the chorister (a) has a good sense of timing, tempo, appropriate mood, etc., and (b) is assertive enough to convey these things to both the congregation and the accompanist. 
 

It makes a world of difference when accompanist and director are in sync. 

[Calm]

1 hour ago, Scott Lloyd said:

2) the chorister (a) has a good sense of timing, tempo, appropriate mood, etc., and (b) is assertive enough to convey these things to both the congregation and the accompanist. 

And the chorister is willing to practice with the organist instead of assuming they will be in sync. 

[Amulek]

3 hours ago, Scott Lloyd said:

I will comment that such problems are largely eliminated/avoided when (1) the accompanist is able and willing to take direction from the chorister as opposed to setting his/her own tempo, failing to hold notes for their full count, failing to begin on the downbeat or end with the cutoff, etc., and (2) the chorister (a) has a good sense of timing, tempo, appropriate mood, etc., and (b) is assertive enough to convey these things to both the congregation and the accompanist. 

It makes a world of difference when accompanist and director are in sync. 

The portion that I've bolded is, far and away, the only meaningful controlling factor. I'm sorry, but choristers for congregational singing are pretty much just figureheads. 

There is absolutely nothing a chorister can do to make a pianist play any faster than she is capable of playing. Period.

It isn't like people who learn how to play the piano don't know what a metronome is. And the overwhelming majority of them have been listening to the hymns their entire lives - they know what they are supposed to sound like.

Some songs are just hard to play - fast tempos, lots of big jumps, one hand required to play three parts, have challenging rhythms and weird key signatures, accidentals, etc. And there's simply nothing a chorister can do to help with any of that; and no, trying to push the tempo faster than the instrumentalist can play isn't helping.

Either you've got a good piano player or you don't. That one fact is going to pretty much determine what your singing experience is like during church.

I've been in wards where the pianist struggled to play the melody only (with multiple start overs), and I've been in wards where the organist had a graduate degree in organ performance. You can probably guess which one of those was more fun (musically).

 

 

[Scott Lloyd]

3 hours ago, Calm said:

And the chorister is willing to practice with the organist instead of assuming they will be in sync. 

I have no quarrel with this, but my point is that it should go without saying that that the accompanist (and everyone else) follows the director, not the other way around. The best organists/pianists recognize this without needing to be reminded and, regardless of their own level of musical expertise, will try to follow a competent director. 

Edited December 31, 2021 by Scott Lloyd

[Scott Lloyd]

29 minutes ago, Amulek said:

[An able accompanist] is, far and away, the only meaningful controlling factor. I'm sorry, but choristers for congregational singing are pretty much just figureheads. 

I’m talking about best practices, not muddling through the way things are often done. The accompanist should not be the “only meaningful controlling factor,” and where the accompanist is competent, does not have to be. 

[Scott Lloyd]

On 12/29/2021 at 9:42 AM, pogi said:

Could you imagine seeing this at church?  That would be so great!

Does this new change really open the door to that possibility if the local leaders are on-board?  Or, is that too much to hope for?  Despite the doors being potentially opened, I think it is going to take a LONG time before anything other than the piano, organ, flute, clarinet, violin, or cello are viewed as too devilish for sacrament meeting.  

The change is supposed to be more friendly to cultural influences, but the perspectives of what is considered "sacred music" has been so long engrained in our brains and culture that there is no Mormon cultural music outside of what we have always heard in sacrament meeting.  So, my question is how is anything new and different ever going to be viewed as culturally appropriate?  It is likely going to take many decades before we see a healthy array of different cultural musical influences and cultures in different areas and wards.  Until then, anything other than what has always been may seem culturally inappropriate.  

 

On 12/29/2021 at 9:46 AM, bluebell said:

I agree.  Unless the handbook becomes explicit in what is allowed, there will probably be a lot of bishops that refuse to consider anything out of their comfort zone.

The reality is that the appropriateness of a piece or performance of music in a a worship service is going to be whatever the consensus of the congregation deems it to be.  
 

Music is an important element in our liturgy and is meant to evoke and support a worshipful attitude in a worship setting. If, for whatever reason, it cannot or does not accomplish that purpose, it is not useful, notwithstanding cultural diversity. 
 

Musical tastes are subjective (witness the divided opinion on this very thread about “Mary, Did You Know” ), and it can be difficult to call the shots in this matter. But somebody has to do it, and in the Church, the bishop has that role by virtue of his calling and presumably being endowed with the attendant spiritual gifts relating thereto. 

Edited January 1, 2022 by Scott Lloyd

[bluebell]

40 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said:

 

The reality is that the appropriateness of a piece or performance of music in a a worship setting is going to be whatever the consensus of the congregation deems it to be.  
 

Music is an important element in our liturgy and is meant to evoke and support a worshipful attitude in a worship setting. If, for whatever reason, it cannot or does not accomplish that purpose, it is not useful, notwithstanding cultural diversity. 
 

Musical tastes are subjective (witness the divided opinion on this very thread about “Mary, Did You Know” ), and it can be difficult to call the shots in this matter. But somebody has to do it, and in the Church, the bishop has that role by virtue of his calling and presumably being endowed with the attendant spiritual gifts relating thereto. 

Sometimes.

We once had a sister go rogue in sacrament meeting and sing Amazing Grace after the Bishop said she couldn't.  I don't agree with her doing that, but the congregation didn't know that she wasn't supposed to be singing and they loved it.  They believed it was appropriate and reacted accordingly, despite the bishop's thoughts on it. 

The the bishop mentioned to me later that it completely completely detracted from the spirit of the meeting, but everyone that I talked to in the congregation thought it added to the meeting greatly.  

But I do understand what you are saying and I think this example actually proves your point.  If people believe something is inappropriate (like the bishop did) then it's going to be a detraction for them, whether it's actually inappropriate or not.  But usually, with enough exposure, seemingly inappropriate music can become appropriate by default.  Tradition is a strong master.

[Amulek]

1 hour ago, Scott Lloyd said:

I’m talking about best practices, not muddling through the way things are often done.

And I am saying (admittedly, rather cynically) that, even in a best case scenario, the person in charge of leading the music for congregational singing is pretty much expendable. 

I don't mean to denigrate anyone who has served in that capacity, but they are pretty much just for show - kind of like the drum majors in a marching band. 

Honestly, the only time I ever need to glance in the chorister's direction on Sundays is when we sing a hymn with 'extra' verses. But the most common songs we sing with extra verses are all sacrament hymns, and our bishop a few years back made the decision that we would just always sing all verses for sacrament hymns, so it's probably been years since I've last looked at whoever it is who happens to be serving in that calling right now. 

 

Quote

The accompanist should not be the “only meaningful controlling factor,” and where the accompanist is competent, does not have to be. 

Which only proves my point about the capability of the pianist being the only meaningful controlling factor. If you happen to have a professional pianist in your ward, then sure - your director can try to exercise a bit of artistic license with the hymns. But that only works so far as the pianist will allow. Because, regardless of how fast or slow you wave your hands, the only thing that matters is the tempo being piped out over the loudspeakers.

 

[MustardSeed]

2 minutes ago, bluebell said:

Sometimes.

We once had a sister go rogue in sacrament meeting and sing Amazing Grace after the Bishop said she couldn't.  I don't agree with her doing that, but the congregation didn't know that she wasn't supposed to be singing and they loved it.  They believed it was appropriate and reacted accordingly, despite the bishop's thoughts on it. 

The the bishop mentioned to me later that it completely completely detracted from the spirit of the meeting, but everyone that I talked to in the congregation thought it added to the meeting greatly.  

But I do understand what you are saying and I think this example actually proves your point.  If people believe something is inappropriate (like the bishop did) then it's going to be a detraction for them, whether it's actually inappropriate or not.  But usually, with enough exposure, seemingly inappropriate music can become appropriate by default.  Tradition is a strong master.

Personal discomfort can make it very difficult to commune with God.  Since conforming and routine is so valued in our religion, anything unusual can make people uncomfortable.  Even when change is prescribed, people get upset.
The spirit can be present but if I feel awkward I can’t connect with it. I’m too worried about my own survival.  

[Scott Lloyd]

1 hour ago, Amulek said:

If you happen to have a professional pianist in your ward, then sure - your director can try to exercise a bit of artistic license with the hymns. But that only works so far as the pianist will allow. Because, regardless of how fast or slow you wave your hands, the only thing that matters is the tempo being piped out over the loudspeakers.

And if the pianist (or, in most wards, organist) is professional, that person likely understands that it is not his or her role to guide the congregation, but rather, to support the director in that role. Again, I’m talking about best practices, doing the best we can with what we have at our disposal, not being content with past conditions. We should strive for excellence in all aspects of our worship services, even those some might consider minor of trivial. 
 

I don’t think you and I are going to come to a meeting of the minds on this, and I’m not sure very many readers are that interested anyway, so perhaps it is best if we lay it down and move on. 

Edited December 31, 2021 by Scott Lloyd

[bluebell]

1 hour ago, MustardSeed said:

Personal discomfort can make it very difficult to commune with God.  Since conforming and routine is so valued in our religion, anything unusual can make people uncomfortable.  Even when change is prescribed, people get upset.
The spirit can be present but if I feel awkward I can’t connect with it. I’m too worried about my own survival.  

Exactly.

Edit to add, I think that’s why not much will change until or unless the handbook becomes explicit.  We get uncomfortable with anything we think might not be allowed.

I think that we members like to make a hedge around what is “appropriate” so we don’t accidentally do something wrong, and I think a lot of the time it’s about as useful to us as the hedge the Pharisees made around the law of Moses. 

Edited December 31, 2021 by bluebell

[Scott Lloyd]

1 hour ago, bluebell said:

Sometimes.

We once had a sister go rogue in sacrament meeting and sing Amazing Grace after the Bishop said she couldn't.  I don't agree with her doing that, but the congregation didn't know that she wasn't supposed to be singing and they loved it.  They believed it was appropriate and reacted accordingly, despite the bishop's thoughts on it. 

The the bishop mentioned to me later that it completely completely detracted from the spirit of the meeting, but everyone that I talked to in the congregation thought it added to the meeting greatly.  

But I do understand what you are saying and I think this example actually proves your point.  If people believe something is inappropriate (like the bishop did) then it's going to be a detraction for them, whether it's actually inappropriate or not.  But usually, with enough exposure, seemingly inappropriate music can become appropriate by default.  Tradition is a strong master.

The perhaps unanswerable question here is why did the bishop feel it detracted from the meeting. Was it because, in his pridefulness, he was personally put out that his direction wasn’t followed? Or was it because he was privy to personal knowledge and/or divine inspiration to the effect that the performance would not be edifying to some in the congregation? I don’t claim to have the answer. 
 

I do know that God’s house is a house of order, and that entails trusting those who are called to lead and preside over us. 
 

“Amazing Grace” is a fine hymn and has become very popular among our people. I wouldn’t be surprised if it is included in the next hymnal. But like you, I can’t go along with the sister in your anecdote defying the direction of the bishop. 

[bluebell]

4 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said:

The perhaps unanswerable question here is why did the bishop feel it detracted from the meeting. Was it because, in his pridefulness, he was personally put out that his direction wasn’t followed? Or was it because he was privy to personal knowledge and/or divine inspiration to the effect that the performance would not be edifying to some in the congregation? I don’t claim to have the answer. 
 

I do know that God’s house is a house of order, and that entails trusting those who are called to lead and preside over us. 
 

“Amazing Grace” is a fine hymn and has become very popular among our people. I wouldn’t be surprised if it is included in the next hymnal. But like you, I can’t go along with the sister in your anecdote defying the direction of the bishop. 

He was my favorite bishop ever. He also pretty much just kept to the hymns. 

[Vanguard]

On 12/28/2021 at 8:44 PM, Kenngo1969 said:

Yes, I know you said it's not this one, so I apologize for the irrelevant, irreverent diversion, but I couldn't resist!  

 

Nor could I resist this version! Happy New Year! ; )