Some things are still to be decided – including exactly what music will be included, the name and the color of the cover (eight colors are in the running, and Presbyterians are being invited to voice their preferences through an online survey).
A sample of songs being considered was used during worship at the recent Big Tent 2011 gathering in Indianapolis, and will be available after Big Tent for congregations to order through the Presbyterian Publishing Corp. and to use through May 2012. According to David Eicher, editor of the hymnal, the sampler will contain 20 songs, only one of which was included in the last denominational hymnal, The Presbyterian Hymnal: Hymns, Psalms, and Spiritual Songs, which was published in 1990.
A larger sampler from the new hymnal will be ready for the 2012 General Assembly, along with a complete list of the contents of the new book. And congregations may begin pre-ordering the new hymnal next summer, Eicher said, shortly after the 2012 assembly concludes its business.
Although the sampler being released this summer contains mostly songs not included in the current 1990 hymnal, Eicher says Presbyterians will find many of their old favorites in the new book and there will be much familiar material. “No congregation will sing everything in the book,” he said – but he hopes everyone will find some music in it they like.
Here’s more information on the new hymnal under development.
The book. At this point, all decisions of what to include in the new hymnal are tentative. “Nothing is definite at this point,” Eicher said – and then he laughed. “Well I suppose “Silent Night” is definite.”
While the exact lineup of congregational songs to be included in the new publication has not yet been finalized, Eicher said he expects the new hymnal to be about 1,000 pages long – longer than the 1990 hymnal. He expects the new book to have about 800 selections, compared about 600 in the current hymnal.
Despite that, because of better printing techniques and the availability of thinner paper, “the commitment is that it not be any thicker or any heavier” than the 1990 volume, so it should not any more difficult to hold, Eicher said.
The committee. The Presbyterian Committee on Congregational Song has been working for nearly three years now – gathering several times a year, working and singing its way through possible songs for inclusion. The committee sings at least one stanza of every song it is considering, and has worked to build community and solicit feedback through its website and on Facebook, and by seeking to have “Hymnal Advocates” in each of the presbyteries.
The committee members, all of whom are Presbyterians, include church musicians, theology professors, pastors and others who “love the song of the church,” Eicher said, and who understand the role that congregational singing plays in the development of faith.
“Most often, if someone remembers a theological concept, they remember it because it’s been set to music and they have sung it,” Eicher said. Research on the relationship between music and memory has found examples of actors learning to remember their lines by singing them, and of Alzheimer’s patients who can’t communicate well “but they can remember every word” of a familiar song and sing the melody perfectly.
“Community singing helps us remember things about faith,” Eicher said. “It helps us express our prayers, our lament, our joy – all those things we might have a hard time speaking . . . There’s something about a group of folks breathing together. We have to breathe together in order to sing. I believe we’re breathing in the Holy Spirit.”
The process. At its most recent meeting, in June in Louisville, the committee divided into “Texts” and “Tunes” subgroups. The Text group is researching historical variations of songs being considered, to determine “what is the best usage of the text for 21st century Presbyterians,” Eicher said. And the Tunes group is considering which is the best tune, arrangement and key for particular possibilities.
Often, what people assume is the “traditional” version of a song may just be the one with which they are most familiar.
“Sometimes what we think is a standard tune might only have been standard for the past 40 or 50 years,” Eicher said. Often, people will say “just put the text back the way the author wrote it,” without realizing that the author may have edited the words repeatedly, or a number of variations may have emerged over the years. For example, the original lyrics for “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing”are different from the ones Americans today customarily sing at Christmas.
What folks really mean when they say “put the text back” to its original form, Eicher said, is “put it back the way that I learned it.”
Criteria. In selecting what hymns to include, familiarity is pretty high, “and also singability,” Eicher said. “And both of those words are hard to define.”
Songs that one congregation might never sing, considering them too difficult, may be favorites for another.
For some musically inclined congregations, “there is a value to being challenged,” in complexity, in not having all the songs be easy to master. Some congregations have professionally-trained musicians on staff. On the other hand, small congregations might rely on a volunteer pianist, or have no musical accompaniment at all. Keeping that in mind, Eicher’s goal is that “the whole hymnal will be singable by some part of the church.”
The committee also is considering how well particular songs express Reformed theology (which, admittedly, Eicher said, some songs well-loved by Presbyterians do not). It has thought about inclusive language, and made a commitment that “the traditional `Father, Son and Holy Spirit’ language will have a place” in the new hymnal, along with some language to describe the Trinity that’s “new and fresh,” he said.
Research. The committee working on the hymnal has tried to determine, with the help of Presbyterian Research Services, which songs are most popular in the singing repertoire of congregations. Representatives of a random sample of nearly 300 congregations were asked to look at each song in the 1990 hymnbook and answer, “How often in the last year did you use it?” and “Should we carry it forward into the next book?”
Another group of randomly selected congregations was asked to keep a record, for a period of one year, of everything that congregation was asked to sing – from hymns to responses within the liturgy, but excluding what a choir or soloist might sing.
The songs that Presbyterians sing regularly vary significantly among congregations, Eicher said, and can be influenced by a number of factors. Sometimes one pastor or music director served there a long time, and left his or her musical mark on the repertoire. There may be regional distinctions, or differences between urban and rural churches. And there has been cross-pollination, as people shift from one denomination to another and bring the music they love with them.
Results from the committee’s research on congregational song choices can be found online
New possibilities. The committee is aware that many congregations don’t just sing music from a denominational hymnal that worshippers find in their pews. Increasingly, they’re mixing in music drawn from other hymnals, from collections of works by a single composer, using music they’ve discovered at conferences or downloaded from the internet and printed in the bulletin or projected on the big screen.
“The day is long gone when a congregation only sang out of its denominational hymnal, and never sang out of anything else,” Eicher said.
There’s a strong interest, he said, in the ability to project both the text and the melody lines of songs onto the big screen; to be able to electronically search a database; and to have audio files of music available to listen to. The publishing corporation is considering which of these resources would be cost-effective, with supplemental resources to become available after the hymnal is printed.
The new hymnal also will include a broader selection of global music, as the committee has considered music from a variety of cultures. “There’s a great value in opening us up to the diversity of songs from God’s people around the world,” Eicher said, and “to realizing there are more people who worship in the Christian faith around the world in languages other than English than they do in English.”
Still to be decided. At its next meeting in August, the committee will consider what to include in the hymnal from the Psalms, work it has mostly deferred up until now.
Also up for discussion: the music for the sung responses of the liturgy, such as the Doxology or Gloria Patri.
In the coming months, the committee will be sponsoring a series of denominational sing-alongs – asking all congregations in the PC(USA) to sing the same song in worship on the same day – starting with “Blest Be the Tie that Binds” on Sept. 4.
And the final choices need to be ready for General Assembly in 2012.
Because all costs for developing the hymnal are being underwritten by the Presbyterian Publishing Corp., the 2012 General Assembly doesn’t officially have to approve its contents, Eicher said. But the hymnal was developed at the request of the 2006 General Assembly. While formal approval isn’t required, “obviously we would love for the General Assembly to endorse it for use,” Eicher said.
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