New Hymn Book and Primary Songbook coming out!

[Jane_Doe]

I'm so excited!!!!!

Check it: https://www.lds.org/church/news/church-announces-plans-for-new-hymnbook-and-childrens-songbook?cid=HP_MO-18-6-2018_dPTH_fCNWS_xLIDyL1-B_&lang=eng

 

Big highlights--

More international hymns / hymns orientating in non-English language

Standardize hymn numbers across all books / languages  (currently they're all over the place)

Members encouraged to submit suggestions and/or their own music

Doing updated translations and recordings for all songs

Getting the rights for all languages / formats (right now some rights don't exist in certain languages or digital formats)

 

This is a loooooong way off-- submissions are open until summer 2019, so getting something published by 2022 would be light speed.  Still, uber exciting!  Honestly I am hoping for a larger variety in tempos and play styles too.  Yes, reverence is important, but that doesn't mean we need to sing "Now come let us rejoice" like we're at a funeral. 

 

Edited June 18, 2018 by Jane_Doe

[Overwatch]

Nice

[BeccaKirstyn]

33 minutes ago, Jane_Doe said:

This is a loooooong way off-- submissions are open until summer 2019, so getting something published by 2022 would be light speed.  Still, uber exciting!  Honestly I am hoping for a larger variety in tempos and play styles too.  Yes, reverence is important, but that doesn't mean we need to sing "Now come let us rejoice" like we're at a funeral. 

 

Not sure a marked tempo change would make a difference on someone's ability to play songs like "Now Let Us Rejoice" or "Let Us All Press On" at the correct speed, anyway. I'm always playing these songs at the speed I deem appropriate (which is always a fast tempo--unless it's a sacrament song). But some just aren't able to play at that speed and feel confident. And if you're a skilled piano player and are able to play at that tempo, you should hopefully already not play it like a death march 😅 but maybe these changes will help! My fingers are crossed cause I'm always down for faster tempos. 

[NeuroTypical]

Oh wow - I wonder if Amazing Grace might find it's way in. 

If they get rid of Phelps' 'The Spirit of God', the brethren and I are gonna have words.  (I'm still ticked off at LDS culture for not having "Lead, Kindly Light" be a sacrament meeting staple.)

 

Edited June 18, 2018 by NeuroTypical

[zil]

14 minutes ago, BeccaKirstyn said:

skilled piano player

At the rate we're going, I think it won't be long before we have to switch from skilled piano players to skilled player pianos.

3 minutes ago, NeuroTypical said:

 (I'm still ticked off at LDS culture for not having "Lead, Kindly Light" be a sacrament meeting staple.) 

I'm already a little ticked that we almost never sing the one and only Christmas hymn in our hymnal written by a Mormon.

[jerome1232]

31 minutes ago, zil said:

At the rate we're going, I think it won't be long before we have to switch from skilled piano players to skilled player pianos.

I'm already a little ticked that we almost never sing the one and only Christmas hymn in our hymnal written by a Mormon.

Is an ES-339 to irreverent for sacrament?

I mean it's got f-holes, that makes it classy right? I can even turn off distortion!

 

[zil]

Just now, jerome1232 said:

Is an ES-339 to irreverent for sacrament?

I mean it's got f-holes, that makes it classy right? I can even turn off distortion!

 

Sorry, not approved, per the handbook.  Maybe when the player pianos break down.

[Midwest LDS]

I'm super excited. Hopefully we can get "Come thou fount" back in that's a long time favorite of mine. And hopefully we can get rid of some of the ones that just make me laugh when I sing them (I'm looking at you "In our Lovely Deseret". I love Sister Snow, but that hymn always forces me to supress giggles😃).

[jerome1232]

21 hours ago, zil said:

Sorry, not approved, per the handbook.  Maybe when the player pianos break down.

Even if we do the paint job in sunburst? 

Oh well, I can barely pick my way through away in a manger at this point anyways.

Edited June 19, 2018 by jerome1232

[Just_A_Guy]

I’m hoping for better-quality Portuguese translations.  My recollection of my time with the Portuguese hymnal is that the translators were aware of roughly 10-15 rhyming sets of words in Portuguese; and so they re-worked the text to make the rhyming scheme somehow work within those parameters.  Even with my terrible language skills, I could tell that the resultant Portuguese translations were stylistically very unnatural and stilted, and in substance quite shallow. 

[BeccaKirstyn]

1 hour ago, zil said:

I'm already a little ticked that we almost never sing the one and only Christmas hymn in our hymnal written by a Mormon.

Which one?? I'm so curious.

[Still_Small_Voice]

I like most of the Hymns in our current songbook.  One I hope they remove from the book is the Hymn:  "Sons of Michael, He Approaches."  I never did like the Hymn and I have never heard it sang and I am glad.  I think the lyrics borderline on the worship of Michael the Archangel.

Please add in this song to the new Hymn book:  "I'm Trying to Be like Jesus."

[Connie]

1 hour ago, BeccaKirstyn said:

Which one?? I'm so curious.

Far, Far Away on Judea's Plains

[zil]

1 hour ago, BeccaKirstyn said:

Which one?? I'm so curious.

If you go to the back of the hymnal where they list author/composer names, you'll see that some of them have an asterisk by them.  The asterisk marks members of the Church.

37 minutes ago, Connie said:

Far, Far Away on Judea's Plains

That and "Once in Royal David's City" are my two favorite Christmas hymns, partly because they're both fabulous, and partly because the rest of them have been done to death!

[BeccaKirstyn]

7 minutes ago, zil said:

If you go to the back of the hymnal where they list author/composer names, you'll see that some of them have an asterisk by them.  The asterisk marks members of the Church.

That and "Once in Royal David's City" are my two favorite Christmas hymns, partly because they're both fabulous, and partly because the rest of them have been done to death!

 

45 minutes ago, Connie said:

Far, Far Away on Judea's Plains

Oh, good to know! I love Far, Far Away on Judea's Plains. Also painful to sing if played slowly. 

[John_Pack_Lambert]

I have to admit I want to for sure see "If You Could Hie To Kolob" go, its line "There is no end to race", at least on its face is just so wrong. I also am not sure of the doctrinal soundness of the hymn overall.

 

Another group of hymns I want gone most exemplified by "Our Mountain Home So Dear". These are hymns to Utah.

 

I want us to introduce a few hymns that have as their cultural roots being African-American spirituals, although I know how that will lead to cries of cultural appropriation.

[John_Pack_Lambert]

7 hours ago, Jane_Doe said:

I'm so excited!!!!!

Check it: https://www.lds.org/church/news/church-announces-plans-for-new-hymnbook-and-childrens-songbook?cid=HP_MO-18-6-2018_dPTH_fCNWS_xLIDyL1-B_&lang=eng

 

Big highlights--

More international hymns / hymns orientating in non-English language

Standardize hymn numbers across all books / languages  (currently they're all over the place)

Members encouraged to submit suggestions and/or their own music

Doing updated translations and recordings for all songs

Getting the rights for all languages / formats (right now some rights don't exist in certain languages or digital formats)

 

This is a loooooong way off-- submissions are open until summer 2019, so getting something published by 2022 would be light speed.  Still, uber exciting!  Honestly I am hoping for a larger variety in tempos and play styles too.  Yes, reverence is important, but that doesn't mean we need to sing "Now come let us rejoice" like we're at a funeral. 

 

Much of the particular complaints about how hymns are sung and played comes from people currently ignoring what the hymnbook at present says. There may be some room for revisions and simplifications that would make hymns more singable, but Now Let Us Rejoice is supposed to be sung at a tempo of 100-120, although 100 seems a bit low for that hymn. Many times hymns are sung below tempo in wards. A new hymnbook on its own will not fix these problems. 

[Jane_Doe]

1 minute ago, John_Pack_Lambert said:

Much of the particular complaints about how hymns are sung and played comes from people currently ignoring what the hymnbook at present says. There may be some room for revisions and simplifications that would make hymns more singable, but Now Let Us Rejoice is supposed to be sung at a tempo of 100-120, although 100 seems a bit low for that hymn. Many times hymns are sung below tempo in wards. A new hymnbook on its own will not fix these problems. 

I agree with you there.  I do think having more faster tempo songs will help break that cultural habit though.

[John_Pack_Lambert]

13 minutes ago, Jane_Doe said:

I agree with you there.  I do think having more faster tempo songs will help break that cultural habit though.

You may be right. On the other hand in some wards they only sing about 10-15 songs. I like "I Believe in Christ", although have to say I am very glad that "Mormon Doctrine" is out of print, but it was a bit much when two weeks in a row my ward sang it as the closing hymn.

 

I also want to see more Easter Hymns. We have 3 and one is in a hard to do minor tempo. We also should sing them more than just one Sunday a year, but that is an issue that is not directly connected to the hymnal.

 

"Ring Out, Wild Bells" also gets a strong vote from me to be ousted.

[zil]

42 minutes ago, John_Pack_Lambert said:

There is no end to race

Granted, I don't know if Phelps documented what he meant by that anywhere, but I never assumed he meant skin color - I assumed he meant "species" - as in, "the human race".  Nothing wrong with that line as far as I can tell.

[John_Pack_Lambert]

7 minutes ago, zil said:

Granted, I don't know if Phelps documented what he meant by that anywhere, but I never assumed he meant skin color - I assumed he meant "species" - as in, "the human race".  Nothing wrong with that line as far as I can tell.

I could pull statements by Phelps in regards to the treatment of African-Americans that a modern person would find troubling, but this is true of most 19th-century people who we have large number of their statements recorded. Even Joseph Smith who ran on a plank to abolish slavery had not always been keen toward the cause of abolitionists, and since he would have compensated slave owners for the value of their slaves, instead of paid the slaves reparations for being slaves, his policy would be disliked by many moderns, including BYU's leading expert on the history of slavery in America, Matthew Mason.

However whatever Phelps meant by "There is no end to race", the way the term race is used today in America makes the line troubling. Of course if it is just the line, we could change it to "grace", and have a non-problematic song. No longer in "Praise to the Man" do we say Joseph Smith's blood will "stain Illinois".

[John_Pack_Lambert]

This leads me to think all current hymns need to be considered for revisions to see if any of the texts are not in harmony with Church teaching. This is why the hymn that used to be called "From Greenland's Icy Mountains" needs to go. 

[John_Pack_Lambert]

I submitted a hymn. I am not sure it is even quite up to being a hymn. I have another idea that I wrote down as a teenager, than I think I will run through my mind a bit longer before submission. It appears that they want some of the judging on the hymns to be done with generally no knowledge of the composer. 

 

The works I submitted are just texts. They have tunes in my mind, but I know not how to write them down.

[Fether]

There are a few songs that are essentially the same, but with different melodies, can we do the same with Rock of Ages?

 

[John_Pack_Lambert]

I'm surprised to not see any more comments. 

 

I hope some of the new submissions of hymns not yet written turn out to be really good. I think that is where some of the best chances of new and exciting developments are.