tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post7401269771299021085..comments2024-03-27T03:19:11.216-04:00Comments on Assistant Village Idiot: Traditional WorshipAssistant Village Idiothttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01978011985085795099noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-65169187800916694162020-12-08T15:54:44.169-05:002020-12-08T15:54:44.169-05:00@ random observer - understood. I hated the song ...@ random observer - understood. I hated the song until it was condemned, at which point I at least softened my hatred. But I still hate it on other grounds. The guys is just being a <i>jerk</i>Assistant Village Idiothttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01978011985085795099noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-22093389162770128632020-12-08T13:39:28.300-05:002020-12-08T13:39:28.300-05:00Then again, now that "Baby it's cold outs...Then again, now that "Baby it's cold outside" is considered a "rapey" sexist hate crime, I'm more inclined to appreciate it's comparatively gentle approach to coarse human sexuality, so I don't consider myself a complete musical reactionary.random observerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02348644823854777418noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-49993475308136456442020-12-08T13:37:07.375-05:002020-12-08T13:37:07.375-05:00I can't speak to it in the specific Christian ...I can't speak to it in the specific Christian context, but consider this loose analogy.<br /><br />For much of history, monarchy was the normal and prestige form of government. it was so normative that it was perfectly possible, desirable, and could be successful for a rebel/usurper to seize power and assume the throne of his predecessor with all its prerogatives. A change of dynasty, even if not usurpation, did not end the institution. New states sought native or foreign monarchs to be legitimate. In China, although many new dynasties were founded by ancient nobility, several were by peasants. These nevertheless, using the mandate of heaven concept, assumed the imperial throne, considered it both legitimate and necessary to do so, and were widely accepted as doing the proper thing.<br /><br />Now, new states do not seek monarchs. If any existing one ends it will never likely be restored and, most illustratively, the institutions are more closely bound up with the legitimacy of the existing monarch and his/her near heirs. In China again, residual monarchism is completely associated with the heirs of the [Manchu] Ching dynasty. On the tiny chance an emperor were to be restored, it would have to be one of them. No new dynasty is going to emerge and actually call itself such, or proclaim the return of the imperial system. That would seem ridiculous to all, in a way it would not have not so long ago, and more ridiculous than would restoring a Ching emperor.<br /><br />The general conclusion- when a tradition is dying, or is even seen by many of its members as dying, or at least as under assault, the specific content of a particular time and place becomes wildly more important and identified with the very thing itself.<br /><br />For my part, I might wish it otherwise but not for Christmas music. Everything I have heard written since 1900 is rubbish, except as radio or tv soundtrack material. But that's me. random observerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02348644823854777418noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-7143977407399205672020-12-07T13:31:28.594-05:002020-12-07T13:31:28.594-05:00@ Unknown - very good stuff to know. Thank you. ...@ Unknown - very good stuff to know. Thank you. I would say that in general the same psalm, on the same day, but in different translation and in different meter is not a big change over four centuries. If the other daily psalms are mix-and-match tunes and meters, that's still pretty close. A person from 1600 showing up and trying to follow along would be able to hang in there through the differences.Assistant Village Idiothttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01978011985085795099noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-72140083800043534242020-12-07T12:26:12.646-05:002020-12-07T12:26:12.646-05:00"How close is it to the Genevan Psalter?"...<i>"How close is it to the Genevan Psalter?"</i><br /><br />Well of course I had to go look it up now.<br /><br />The answer is about 20% duplication. The compilers of the 1650 Scottish Psalter had the "Anglo"-Genevan psalter from Knox (a translation from French but informed by English Bibles and Hebrew) and thought the number and metrical variety of tunes in the original to be to big in number for easy congregational singing -- much better to limit the number of tunes, and have most of them in "common" (ballad) meter.<br /><br />What modern musicologists have found is that those places (like the Netherlands) where the direct translation of the Geneva Psalter remained commonly and widely in use, the use of it shifted over time to singing dirgelike in mostly 'whole' notes. For example, one of the most popular Genevan tunes is now known as "old 100th" in English-speaking places and used for the Doxology (Praise God from whom all blessings flow) and "All people that on earth do dwell". So even where the use of the same 'book' is continuous over centuries with the music written in near-modern musical notation, local custom has changed the rhythm and tempo to reduce complexity over the years. Depending upon where I've lived, I've found that the version(s) in my church hymnal for that tune may be very close to the Geneva rhythm or very square and drawn out or anywhere in between - with the 'simplifications' in different places for different churches. And sometimes when I think "I thought I knew this tune but it's different here, I'd better follow the notes", I find that my expectation, what's being played by the organ, and what's written on the page are 3 very different things.<br /><br />When we moved to our current town and joined the (liturgical, Episcopal) church, I was startled to find that the organist played the hymns as I remembered them from my childhood, rather than how they were written in the notation in the hymnal. Apparently after her playing organ for decades in this church -- and in spite of the many music teachers in the congregation -- I was the first to not only comment that what we heard wasn't what was written on the stave, but identify which hymnal version she was actually playing. So I suppose it doesn't surprise me that the rhythms and tempos change over decades and centuries, even with written music right in front of every congregant.Douglas2https://www.blogger.com/profile/11290012200563917585noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-3035912172304336752020-12-07T11:18:38.829-05:002020-12-07T11:18:38.829-05:00Yes, I do remember that. I eventually warmed up t...Yes, I do remember that. I eventually warmed up to "This is the Feast" but still miss the old "Gloria in Excelsis Deo".<br /><br />You can tell a Star Wars fan was raised Lutheran when "May the Force be with you" is answered, "and also with you."Christopher Bhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00396671757183163171noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-37739288886965967912020-12-06T22:46:12.025-05:002020-12-06T22:46:12.025-05:00How close is it to the Genevan Psalter? That woul...How close is it to the Genevan Psalter? That would be a few centuries of continuity in at least one aspect of the service.Assistant Village Idiothttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01978011985085795099noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-5054329795840214722020-12-06T22:03:55.113-05:002020-12-06T22:03:55.113-05:00It was long ago an in another country, but I did f...It was long ago an in another country, but I did for a while attend a "Reformed Presbyterian Church" which was firmly in the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exclusive_psalmody camp, where we progressed in order (Psalms 1-3 on the first <i>lord's day</i> of the year and 148-150 on the last, with two or three per week in between -- and <b>in numerical order.</b>). Their reprint of some version of the Scottish Psalter had assigned tunes, but <i>"the number of tunes has been so limited as to render it possible for the congregations to learn to sing them all"</i>. Someone gave a pitch, and then we sang enthusiastically the melody only - certainly no harmony, and definitely no accompaniment. Every psalm text in the book was sung once each year (in order), and each tune in it used many times over the course of the year.<br /><br />Given that they stuck to this as religiously as some stick to the KJV, I was kind of doubtful that it has changed much in generations. However I can look them up on facebook, and now they are using a new printing of the psalter that has some new alternate rhyming translations of psalms in 'long metre' rather than common meter, and often has 'B', 'C', and even 'D', tune choices -- many of which (gasp) are just hymn tunes common in other traditions, but with only the melody line notated. <br /><br />At the time though, I felt like I was the inheritor and participant in a tradition unchanged for centuries.Douglas2https://www.blogger.com/profile/11290012200563917585noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-20748755687087017792020-12-06T21:11:58.749-05:002020-12-06T21:11:58.749-05:00I've said that if we were fully serious about ...I've said that if we were fully serious about serving each other, there'd be a contest to see who got to clean the toilets in church this week.<br /><br />Within reason, I should try to make the other person comfortable praising God with the songs dear to his heart, and he should be trying the same for me. Uncle Screwtape had somewhat to say, as usual. "You would expect to find the "low" churchman genuflecting and crossing himself lest the weak conscience of his "high" brother should be moved to irreverence, and the "high" one refraining from these exercises lest he should betray his "low" brother into idolatry. And so it would have been but for our ceaseless labor. Without that the variety of usage within the Church of England might have become a positive hotbed of charity and humility."jameshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01792036361407527304noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-53094571936275407322020-12-06T18:38:26.860-05:002020-12-06T18:38:26.860-05:00You might remember the "Create In Me A Clean ...You might remember the "Create In Me A Clean Heart" from the Red Hymnal then. Lovely harmony. We sang it for years in the car.Assistant Village Idiothttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01978011985085795099noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19305198.post-56563136789840889892020-12-06T17:10:36.923-05:002020-12-06T17:10:36.923-05:00We have pieces from the liturgy in the Lutheran Bo...<i>We have pieces from the liturgy in the Lutheran Book of Worship (Red Book: LCA Augustana) that I'm sure not Lutherans even do anymore.</i><br /><br />I grew up on the red Service Book and Hymnal (ALC congregation, nee 1st ALC). For the denominations that became the ELCA, the red hymnals were replaced with the current Lutheran Book of Worship with a green cover about 1980. As an aside, the LCMS folks that started the whole new hymnal project bailed and never adopted the LBW.Christopher Bhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00396671757183163171noreply@blogger.com