So which hymn books does everyone use these days? We have Hymns and Psalms and Songs of Fellowship Books 1 and 2.

David

Here we go again... another one my earlier floppy threads
GC uses: Ancient and Modern, Mission Praise, Redemption Hymnal (Officially) but there are times when other books might be pressed into use for various reasons.

H-Bookly
GC

New English Hymnal has to be my favourite. New English Praise is a good supplement to it.

Also Hymns Old and New, (Anglican Edition), Complete Hymns Old and New (Anglican edition) and Hymns Old and New (Liturgucal edition). And Sunday Psalms, and New Hymns and Worship Songs.

Mission Praise is on the top shelf, largely unopened.

The Moravian Hymnbook and Mission Praise.

We use Hymns Old and New Complete Anglican Edition.. an utter pile of rubbish in my opinion. The pages are so thin they are like tissue paper and the GBP20 full harmony edition falls apart after about two years of weekly use...

We also have New English Hymnal for Evensong. This is somewhat better.

I grew up with AMR and Hundred Hymns for Today... these were merged in A&M New Standard which is my preferred tome. The more recent Common Praise is not as good in my opinion, the typeface is not to my liking.

Mission Praise?! *spits*

We use the Church of Ireland hymnal, and yes, the paper has to be treated with great care! I've just had to replace mine, at a cost of £35, after the old one completely fell asunder.

Mission Praise is there, but not much used - if ever.

We also have a book of common prayer, from which the psalms and canticles are sung in conjunction with a chant book. There are two versions of each service - modern and traditional, and both are used, though I much prefer the traditional words. It's only a matter of time before the Nunc Dimittis will start with "God, can we go now?" as opposed to "Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace."

For Communion services we use a Rutter setting, though I struggle with some of this, and would like to come up with something easier for when it's me playing. The Rector is looking at a few alternatives, but the choir will have to be happy with it too. Church choirs can be very set in their ways!

This is exactly what our system used to be, but our new (ish, he started last July) choirmaster has phased out the HOAN so we now sing from NEH in the mornings too. It certainly makes it a lot easier for me to remember which hymns I can play!

There's something really beautiful about the old words isn't there?

New English Hymnal and Plainsong Psalter

I'm not an organist, but hope I'm still allowed to reply.

We use NEH most of the time, with Mission Praise coming out occasionally, usually for Tambourine Sunday. I don't know which psalter, but communion settings alternate between Rutter and Shephard. Both of the anthems in our repertoire are from single-work sheets.

OK, I exaggerate about an anthem repertoire of two, but not by much.



It's a dreadful book, but one which provided one of my favourite hymn comedy moments. When one of my cousins got married, they didn't print the hymn words in the order of service - everyone was handed a copy of MP with their order of service. They ran out of words editions, so Husband and I grabbed a couple of music editions. Shortly before the service the vicar, who'd seen that we had music editions, came up to us to see if we'd be OK with having dots and words .

Ermm... dots and words?

Blonde momently,
GC

Dots = music
Words = well, um, words

Explainingly...

Christian Science Hymnal. Which is full of tunes from hymns everyone knows with words that are more reflective of Mrs Eddy's particular, idiosyncratic view of the world.

Mimicly,
GC

Amusedly,
Patricia. (Hope we're not relegated to Viva Word Games... )

Dots and words.... Indeed!!!

Hmmphly
GC

Baptist Praise and Worship (I don't like the changed words - prefer the old Baptist hymn book) and Songs of Fellowship. My personal favourite hymn books are Golden Bells and Christian Hymns.

Liz

A&M New Standard, Mission Praise Combined, Spring Harvest 1989, Spring Harvest 1991.
Also Songs for the New Millennium, The Iona Abbey Worship Book, and photocopies of anything else anyone finds (including, on occasion, plainchant from NEH) which are then put on the screen for the congregation via Powerpoint.
Reckon we have quite an eclectic mix!

We use "songs of fellowship". Don't you just love their version of "The lord's my shepherd"? We sing from a booklet of the 100 or so best ones, but they don't publish the music to match directly with the booklet - you have to buy 3 volumes with loads of other hymns that you might not want.

oh drat - how do you get two quotes into the same post?

anyway I was wondering if this happens in Liz and DCMBarton's church (it's something like this from memory...); In "We are marching in the light of God" the words "Light of God... We are" are written as three equal notes over two crotchets followed by quaver rest crotchet quaver. You can almost imagine a drum thudding on the quaver rest. I think it gives a real sense of movement to the beat. Yet we always sing it (and end up playing it ) as a rather blander but easier dotted rhythm - "light of God... We are" coming on a dotted crotchet quaver quaver crotchet quaver. (I hope I'm still in the right hymn book!)

ooh Liz - 999 posts - you'd better make your next post a memorable one - you're about to leave the comfort of "advanced member" status for the bright lights and fast cars of "prodigy" status

Just a thought -- have you checked whether your use of photocopies is legal?

Churches can buy a licence to allow copying on a particular basis.. I forget now the details..

I know they CAN ......

I don't know - which one is it? The one with the descant "I will trust I will trust in you" or the graham kendrick one to the hebrew melody? I like both of those a lot - or is it something else? (too idle to get the book out and look ..)



it slipped past without me even noticing!

David says it's not worth a trip to the expensive Chinese restaurant i like. Meanie

Graham Kendrick? aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh

Our choir recently sang that, we sang it with the proper rhythm (took a while for some people to catch it!) - it does sound better


I like the one with the descant - don't think I know the other one.

Press the Quote button for each of the posts from which you wish to quote, then press Add Reply at the bottom, et voila - a reply with multiple quotes, from which you can delete all the irrelevant bits. Be warned, it doesn't work if you're using a reaaaaally old computer.

<goes off to find out about Graham Kendrick>
<finds Graham Kendrick's website>
<comes back to hymn book thread to join in general scream>
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH! I should have guessed from the guitar

SOmeone else who's led a shelted life then ?

Me? A sheltered life? I'll let you draw your own conclusions there

got to hand it to you for trying!

yes it's the one with the descant






thanks Sarah! It's really nice to be able to share such a thought with someone - not the sort of comment which would elicit much interest from work colleagues, for instance!







YAAAAAAAAY! Thanks Deborah, I've been wanting to do that for ages.



By the way, did anyone see that Songs of Praise a while ago where there was this arrangement I think of "Abide with Me" with a string quartet? It was soooooooo lovely. I telephoned the arranger's secretary to see if the music is in print, but he was in Africa for a while so she didn't know.

yeah


Nope, sounds nice though - if you find out it is in print please let me know

Well. We always sing it the naff way, too - unless I work really hard with the choir the week before. I had always been told (by John Bell amongst others) that the way it is printed is the way they sing it in Africa, and it's us Westerners who change the rhythm. BUT... a few years ago I had a contact in a church a S. Africa (mixed race choir) who sent a tape of some of their music, along with some printed versions. It included "We are marching". The printed version said "© Wild Goose Publications" at the bottom - i.e. they were using a version produced in Scotland, and although it is printed the proper way..... they were singing it the naff way. If you follow me. So... don't know what this proves, but I thought it was an interesting one.






... and we DO.

and we DO.

good - thanks for that Alison!

Our late choir director arranged most - if not all - of the plainsong accompaniments in EH so - I guess - you know!