Tag: church music

The Volunteer Organist

Byartsyhonker February 26, 2011 0 Comments
Last Sunday I rolled along to Christ Church Wanstead as I often do for Evensong; it's usually quite a small service and I enjoy turning up, singing, and going away again without having to worry about messing anything up. Evensong doesn't have to be all cathedrals and choirboys and processions and Stanford; it can be an intimate, quiet occasion, comfortable like an old coat -- even if, for me,...

Warmer wrists!

Byartsyhonker February 9, 2011 0 Comments
On Saturday a pair of these arrived in the post:They were knitted for me by my aunt, and my mum sent them along to keep my wrists warm while I'm practising at church.St Andrew's, like many church buildings of its time, was built with not much regard for temperature regulation. Once upon a time there was some kind of underfloor radiator system but that has since been replaced by radiant electric...

A Response to that “CCM praise songs we can’t stand” meme:

Byartsyhonker February 5, 2011 3 Comments
"There are two musical situations on which I think we can be confident that a blessing rests. One is where a priest or an organist, himself a man of trained and delicate taste, humbly and charitably sacrifices his own (aesthetically right) desires and gives the people humbler and coarser fare than he would wish, in a belief (even, as it may be, the erroneous belief) that he can thus bring them to...

Muse musings

Byartsyhonker January 31, 2011 0 Comments
I seem to composing better for people and occasions than for competitions. Maybe I haven't entered enough competitions to gather accurate data from which to draw such a conclusion. However, despite putting a lot of work into it, I wasn't really happy with my entry for the St Paul's competition in June. The last few weeks I've had in mind the King James Bible Composition Awards, which I scrape in...

EVENSONG AS HARDY KNEW IT

Byartsyhonker January 29, 2011 0 Comments
In the final year of my degree I decided I needed to do more singing, and one thing led to another...I am delighted that we'll be singing and playing Evensong at a church not too far from where I live! It makes carrying the serpent much easier. Playing from the gallery is a treat, too; many galleries have had so many bits of pipe organ added that we can't get into them. EVENSONG AS HARDY KNEW IT...

Travel time and time travel

Byartsyhonker October 16, 2010 0 Comments
This morning feels about a million years away! Really, I only had two main events today, but the day felt much longer.I started with a Gregorian Chant workshop put on by RSCM EEL. I wouldn't ordinarily have gone to something like that with such short notice -- I got an e-mail about it on Thursday -- but it was led by Nick Gale, director of music at St George's RC Cathedral, and it was close to...

Transcendence

Byartsyhonker August 31, 2010 1 Comment
I've just been to Greenbelt, a Christian arts festival held at Cheltenham Race Course. There is music, but I didn't get to much of that, tending instead to be drawn to talks, workshops and worship.The days are already merging into a sort of blur, but some things stand out. One of the most memorable and perhaps transcendent experiences for me was an Orthodox Vespers on Sunday night. The room was a...

Chanting tunes

Byartsyhonker July 16, 2010 0 Comments
Dr Francis Roads has written an article on Joseph Key's chanting tunes. An extract:"The chanting tune was developed as means of enabling local quires to sing prose psalms and canticles. The Anglican psalm chant was the usual manner in which prose psalms were rendered in the cathedral style. But Anglican psalm chanting is an art, which entails the ability of singers to fit phrases of several,...

I will sing praises

Byartsyhonker April 22, 2010 0 Comments
I've been incubating a project. It isn't done yet -- won't be for a while -- but I think it's time to start writing about it.I have developed something of an interest in the psalms. Partly to encourage their use in (Christian) liturgy, and partly to indulge in my passion for learning more about them, I want to run a series of workshops. The idea would be to look at the psalms in what we...

Sweet singing from the choir

Byartsyhonker April 7, 2010 1 Comment
In late summer of 2009, I was talking with the organist at St Andrew's Leytonstone. I mentioned that I wanted to write more church music, but that I realised that many parish churches in England don't have large choirs and so in order to write effectively for existing resources I would probably need to learn more about the organ.One thing led to another, and to another, and soon not only was I...