Footdee

This is a hymn I wrote last time I was in Aberdeen; or was it last time but one? I'm not sure; but I know I was looking at the sea when I wrote it. I've used a paraphrase of verses from Psalm 107 (the bit that starts" they that go down to the sea in ships") by Isaac Watts, but of course as with any hymn tune you could use a different set of Long Metre words and they'd fit. PDF with text of first...

Cheerful voices: As pants the hart

This anonymous piece is one of my favourite settings of Psalm 42. I know it from playing and singing with London Gallery Quire, though I've recorded one more verse than we usually sing in order to better portray the hopeful tone of the psalm near the end. The setting is edited by Dr Francis Roads. Psalm 42 is the sort of thing that many people think of as a bit miserable. It is a psalm of crying...

Metrical Psalms for Advent

I want to encourage the use of psalms in liturgy. To this end I have committed to compiling a small booklet of metrical psalms for use this coming Advent (Year B). As with everything else I publish I will release the work under a CC BY-SA licence so that other people can use it, free of charge, without having to bother me for permission.I aim to have two settings of each of the psalms for the...

Psalter Commons

I have a new project! It's called Psalter Commons and I would love your help with it. I'd like the words of the psalms to be freely available for liturgy and study, but copyright law means the only truly free translations are quite old. If you have translated or paraphrased a psalm or many psalms, please feel free to add the texts! They don't need to have music, though if you do have music that's...

In the great congregation I will praise…

Though my diocesan cathedral in Chelmsford is a bit of a trek for me, I'm privileged in London to be within easy travel distance of both St Paul's Cathedral and Southwark Cathedral.Yesterday, partly out of curiosity and partly out of a desire to attend a service that I couldn't mess up by playing the organ in the wrong place, I attended the Chrism Mass (actually called "The Renewal of Ordination...

Psalm 31 vv 9-16 to Aylesbury

This is the last of the metrical Psalms for this Lent. On Maundy Thursday we'll be singing Psalm 22, right enough, but it will be a chanted version using the Common Worship text. The plan is to keep that very simple: two notes only, a minor third apart.I wanted to use the opportunity to teach the choir (and expose the congregation) to another good tune that's in the New English Hymnal but which...

Psalm 130 to Cheshire

This past Sunday -- Passion Sunday -- was not an All-Age Service, or anything else requiring exceptional liturgy, and so it was back to metrical psalms with a congregational response.I was pleased with this setting of Psalm 130. The tune I chose is one that we'll be using on Palm Sunday and which is not terribly well known in the congregation, so sneaking it in as the psalm is one way of getting...

Psalm 121: Anglican Chant with a congregational response

Continuing with the inclusion of psalms to our liturgy during Lent, on 20th March at St Andrew's we sang Psalm 121. This is a favourite of mine and of many others, and I wanted to use Anglican Chant this time. There are various chants that can be used; the one by H. Walford Davies, with solos in the first and third quarters, is certainly well-known. But it wasn't really appropriate for our very...

With cheerfulness rejoice

Psalm 51 on Wednesday night went well, I thought: the congregation sang their response and the choir led well. There were even some positive comments after the service! For this morning's service I wanted to keep things simple -- fitting in the extra music for Ash Wednesday had already squished our rehearsal time a bit. So I decided we'd do the same thing, using a metrical version of Psalm 32 and...

Starts with P and that rhymes with T

Lent approaches fast and, at St Andrew's at least, this will be a time of penitence, prayer, purple vestments and psalmody.The latter is my concern. During Advent we tried adapting the Common Worship psalter to a simple plainchant melody from Palmer's "Manual of Plainsong". It worked well for the choir, who could rehearse, but the congregation struggled to join in. Even when using the same...