WHEN IT’S TIME TO CHANGE, YOU’VE GOT TO REARRANGEš
Today was one my favorite Sundays at church: Hymn Choice Sunday. I have been singing hymns since the single digits through all of the lyric and style changes since the 1970s.
Pastor Don spoke about how hymns have come to being in many different ways; e.g. tune first, words first, or words and tune at the same time.
It made me think about my Christmas Carol unit at school. I love to connect history and music with my elementary music classes. The chorus may not sing “Go tell it on the mountain that Jesus Christ is born” as I did in grade school (which I don’t think is such a bad thing to avoid in a culturally diverse public school,) but we do get explore and make music with these historic pieces.
The kids are always so surprised when they learn that many of the songs we consider Christmas Carols in the modern age were not originally. Many were edited in the 1500s from pagan tunes to have a Christian message. The “Twelve Days of Christmas” tune was written over almost a millennial ago and had nothing to do with Christmas. And of course Jingle Bells, however popular at Christmas, has nothing to do with the holiday. It is a song about sled racing.
Pastor Don spoke about the Orange, NJ native composer who wrote the tune to “Joy to the World;” a couple hundred years after the words were written. Change was happening in the 1800s as people were moving away from the staid Scottish psalter tunes; looking to worship with updated tunes more reflective of the time.
As with anything, making changes, updating traditions, and including more people is often met with great fighting, sadly most often in places of worship.
Luckily, beloved tunes like “Joy to the World” braved the backlash and controversies and we have this wonderful piece to sing at Christmas.
The great art of life is sensation, to feel that we exist, even in pain. Lord Byron.
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