Article January 13, 1912 Issue

CORRECT HYMN SINGING

FREDERIC W. ROOT.

Complaint is frequently made that in church service the hymns are sung too slowly, that the tune is made to drag heavily along, taxing breath capacity and offending the sense of rhythm. Perhaps the people are exhorted to sing faster, but for the most part it is the organ that is expected to remedy the defect of dragging, and one after another members and committees beseech the organist to keep the singing "up to time."

It is a very easy matter for an organist to play the tunes in exact and prompt rhythm, but if he does this with congregations that are accustomed to drag, and are not instructed, he will play throughout the tune one note in advance of the majority of the singers. Indeed, in the first line of the tune he may have to run quite away from the singers, most of whom, finding themselves left far behind, will stop singing and wait to discover their whereabouts before striking in again. This expedient may give some stimulus to the tempo; the tune will be sung through a few seconds sooner and the demands upon the singers for breath and endurance will be measurably less, but this gain involves a loss in two directions. Naturally there can be no devotional thought or exaltation of sentiment in the midst of musical chaos, and the lack of unity between the organ and the singers is great discomfort to a musical ear. Thus the question of hurrying congregational singing becomes a debatable one.

In the printing of hymn tunes, rests rarely occur; the notes represent each melody as an unbroken flow of tone from beginning to end. But, as breathing-places are a necessity, the melody must be interrupted at intervals. To provide these places and manage them properly is to solve the problem of dragging, at least in those tunes with which the congregation is familiar. The rule is to make the note before a breathing place—usually the last note of a hymn line—shorter than its printed value, thus giving time for breath and making it possible to take the first note of the next phrase with no delay. Most of the heaviness and dragging in congregational singing is from the universal tendency to hold these final notes too long. The old German chorales, those models of dignified, scholarly music for worship, frankly recognize and sanction the natural tendency of untaught singers to hold the last note of each phrase and then take time for breath. This they do by printing the sign for a hold over such notes. Number 205 in the Christian Science Hymnal is an example of this. In it the singer is allowed to pause and take a full breath for each line; and where this is done the line can be sung deliberately and thoughtfully with ease.

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