I made my biannual trek to the Lifeline booksale looking for liturgical music today. It really quite an event – see this report.
In years past you could get AOV and GA pewbooks but I found none at all today and especially not the legendary accompaniment edition of Gather Australia.
I did find some interesting music though and it may come in handy.
I already have Father Frank Andersen’s songs in a melody line edition, but I found the one with Erica Marshall’s handwritten arrangements and extensive notes, mostly suggesting the assembly not sing the verses! I’ve got news for Frank.
I got Songs of Fellowship for Kids (Kingsway Music) that has the threat on the cover: WITH ACTIONS. I also found volumes 2 & 3 of Scripture in Song.
A quick look through Alleluia Aotearoa reveals a whole lot of Shirley Erina Murray texts that will be good to look at, but I’m not sure what awaits in Praise & Worship (Resource Christian Music).
I pretty much know what’s in the two Hillsong books I bought, but have higher hopes for Servant Songs (Albatross). It is an Australian collection from the 80s, but has input from NZ and the US and across Presbyterian, Baptist and Methodist traditions. There are sections on children’s songs, psalms, contemporary folk and traditional hymns.
The introduction has a spirited defence of folk style music as a “vehicle for bringing together a community of faith.” I liked this suggestion:
I see at least four kinds of congregational music:
(a) store aways (high quality words and music including the great tradition hymns)
(b) take aways (substantial music including evergreen folk hymns worth promoting)
(c) throw aways (temporary material suitable for an occasion or period of time, including specially composed offerings)
(d) stay aways (to be forgotten as soon as possible, though graciously – because of blandness, banal or trite qualities)
I saw Fr Frank speak in NZ 15-ish years ago, and he made the same suggestion about congregations and verses. Most people just smiled quietly at that. He also said that most people would not be able to comfortably sing in a language other than their mother-tongue – again, just we smiled quietly and the session was closed with a spontaneous rendition of the Maori-language hymn Mo Maria.
“With actions” certainly reminds me of my Catholic school days. There are some songs we did with actions that I still think about when we sing those songs… All That We Have (Ault), On Eagle’s Wings (Joncas), Soon and Very Soon (Crouch), and Though the Mountains May Fall (Schutte) are the ones I can think of off the top of my head. During my first year of high school, we had an all-school retreat day with Jesse Manibusan where we learned hand motions for Robin Mark’s Days of Elijah and Darrell Evans’ Trading My Sorrows… We continued singing these songs at school masses complete with hand motions for the rest of years in high school. Oh, the joys of Catholic youth. 🙂
Michael Mangan’s “Hearts on Fire” is a major source of actions in this part of the world but it all has to better than some of things I “actioned” to as a child. I grew up Presbyterian and we had predictable actions to abominable songs like “I’m in the Lord’s Army.”
“I’m too young to fight in the infantry, ride in the cavalry, shoot the artillery; I’m
too young to fly over land and sea but I’m in the Lord’s army. Yes, sir! I’m in the
Lord’s army.”
You-tube tells me its still happening but I think the lyrics have been softened a little:
https://youtu.be/ziUFWsnvWQI