Ways Of Singing The Psalms In Worship

The Psalms have been traditionally sung two ways in worship, to metrical paraphrases of the Psalms paired with hymn tunes and to the literal prosaic translations of the Psalms paired with plainchant melodies or psalm-tones. The following article explains these two approaches in more detail. Psalm-singing Christians basically fall into two categories: those who chant the Psalms directly from the Bible and those who sing metrical paraphrases of the Psalms, in which the biblical text is reworked in poetic meter and (often) rhyme. Metrical Psalmody Churches with Reformed and Presbyterian roots traditionally are part of the second group, the tradition known as "metrical psalmody. " They have sung the Psalms almost exclusively in metered, paraphrased stanzas, and they have done so for obvious reasons. Congregations find metrical psalms easy to learn. And when a psalm is well translated into verse and set to an appropriate tune of regular rhythmic structure, it can be a joy to sing. Ye…