Creativity In Hymn Singing

Hymns come in a variety of musical and textual styles. Yet often hymns are sung blandly, with no regard to their variety. The following article describes how hymns can be sung creatively, how the differences in hymns can be reflected in how they are sung, and how this approach can increase the potential for expressing the textual and musical ideas contained in a given hymn. The fact that a hymnal contains some 1500 years of musical, poetic, and theological expressions of faith should be argument enough against boredom ever setting in upon hymn singing. The situation in many congregations, however, is that people have come not to expect much musical satisfaction from their own congregation's hymn singing. The singing of many congregations is characteristically gray: not too fast, not too slow, not too loud, not too soft, and, often, not too interesting. In spite of our low expectations for music in our churches, we still hang on to the belief that singing together is one of the most i…