This is a very personal rant and I apologize for venting about something that, in the face of all that is going on in the terrifying world of today, couldn't be less important or hold any less significance, but I am extremely disappointed this morning in the music we had at church....only because all last week I was so looking forward to the congregational hymns.
However, the hymns we sang bore little resemblance musically to the arrangements we have sung them to for decades. Our dear pianist this morning took it upon herself to change the harmonies and to change the timing/rhythms so drastically that they were generally unrecognizeable. There was no way any of us could sing the harmonies we have always enjoyed because they didn't match the harmonies the pianist was using. I managed to control my disappointment until the final hymn, the one we rarely sing in this particular church, but one that is personally very significant to me. Every week the church website posts a recording of which arrangement we are going to use and I was quite relieved that the arrangement we were supposed to be using was the standard one I am used to. A long look through the posted YouTube videos assured me that there are no other versions out there, so I waited patiently through the messing around with the other hymns in anticipation of my favourite final piece. Unfortunately I just set myself up for disappointment under the delusion that there wasn't any way the pianist could mess with it. I was wrong. She changed the timing from 6/4 to 4/4 and it sounded like something that would be sung by people enduring a forced labour march. Sigh.....I didn't last past the first verse before signing off from the meeting. I felt crushed.
To be fair, this gal is attempting in her own somewhat misguided way to perk up the congregational singing, to bring us into the 21st century at last, to pep us up, to show us possibilities for more modern approaches to singing together and I appreciate her for that. We do need that, I agree. What I don't agree with is that we do it by messing with the old standards that bring us oldies a sense of comfort and stability during a very unstable and frightening time....and certainly not by doing it during a Zoom service. If we were all meeting together, the change of tune or harmonies could be introduced to us verbally, then we could try a verse together and learn to enjoy singing old lyrics to new tunes...together! We could decide together to make changes and enjoy them more because we are doing it together.
So, this sounds like a major overreaction to a small detail and truly it is, but I am feeling very disconnected from life and church and fellowship these days and am needing the comfort of some of the old songs that I can relax and enjoy singing because they have brought comfort through the years. No doubt I am not the only congregant who feels that way today and I hope people will be kind to this young woman who is trying her best to bring changes she feels are necessary to our music. I get it, I really do, but wow, I wasn't prepared today and am still reeling from an overly developed sense of disappointment. I will be fine now that I have had my little rant. Thank you for reading this and for praying for me to be a little less emotionally involved in my church's music in the coming weeks.
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