Special Music for Sacrament

[NightSG]

29 minutes ago, askandanswer said:

Second, all the late-comes who come in after the sacrament is passed miss out on hearing the choir. 

Well, all the people who don't come to Sacrament Meeting (99.8% of the world, plus another .1% of the world who are inactive members, so statistically, the Church doesn't even exist) at all miss out on the whole thing, so why not just do away with all of it, sell the buildings off cheap and save a fortune in maintenance costs?

Edited November 2, 2018 by NightSG

[askandanswer]

Because lots of people still do come

[NightSG]

5 hours ago, zil said:

Actually, this would be nice a lot of the time - some pianists/organists play hymns at their slowest tempo,

You mean "60-75% of their slowest tempo."  That could be the reason there's no dancing; even tai chi masters can't move slowly enough to dance to a funeral dirge.

[NightSG]

7 minutes ago, askandanswer said:

Because lots of people still do come

Nope; 1/1,000 at best.  People may think they're coming, but really, they're just insignificant anomalies in the statistics.

It's similar to trying to deal five cards; the probability of any combination from a 52 card deck is around 2.6 million to one.  That's for every possible combination, so as you can see, it's virtually impossible to deal five cards because they'd have to form one of those ridiculously improbable combinations.

[Vort]

12 hours ago, Carborendum said:

Well, I considered that.  But I actually take the time to try to match the opening, rest, and closing hymns to the topic.  The Sacrament hymn is from (whatever the numbers are) about 160 to 199 or so? Do the math and you'll find that some sacrament hymns have to be recycled through a 12 month period.

If it were up to me, we would sing 172 two weeks out of every three.

12 hours ago, Carborendum said:

BTW, there is one song that I've just recently discovered that is absolutely beautiful.

https://www.lds.org/music/library/hymns/the-wintry-day-descending-to-its-close?lang=eng

But I'm not sure how many will be familiar with it.  I'm planning on scheduling this for New Year's.

Shortly after we moved here in 1995, I learned this hymn when our bishop moved to Nebraska and we sang this hymn, his favorite, as a choir. I agree, it's beautiful, very nineteenth century, and very Utah. I don't imagine we can really squeeze it in as a normal hymn during the year, especially in rainy Seattle, but it would be nice.

11 hours ago, zil said:

Actually, this would be nice a lot of the time - some pianists/organists play hymns at their slowest tempo, which is almost always too slow!  Time to play them at their fastest tempo - keep folks awake!

I remember a bare few exceptions to this rule during my lifetime. One was in State College, PA, where our organist was a young man, 20s or maybe early 30s, who wore a small diamond stud in one ear and played the hymns perfectly and very fast. I loved it. Nicest guy, and I have missed his fast tempo over the years.

[Vort]

6 hours ago, NightSG said:

Nope; 1/1,000 at best.  People may think they're coming, but really, they're just insignificant anomalies in the statistics.

It's similar to trying to deal five cards; the probability of any combination from a 52 card deck is around 2.6 million to one.  That's for every possible combination, so as you can see, it's virtually impossible to deal five cards because they'd have to form one of those ridiculously improbable combinations.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeno's_paradoxes#Arrow_paradox

[zil]

9 hours ago, Carborendum said:

Another person is the chorister. 

C'mon.  You really expect us to believe this person sets the tempo?  Everyone knows it's really the organist who does that.

[zil]

1 hour ago, Vort said:

If it were up to me, we would sing 172 two weeks out of every three.

Ah, yes, this is one of my favorites.  And 177, never, ever, the 176 version.

[zil]

1 hour ago, Vort said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeno's_paradoxes#Arrow_paradox

Quote

It cannot move to where it is not, because no time elapses for it to move there; it cannot move to where it is, because it is already there.

 

[anatess2]

2 hours ago, Vort said:

If it were up to me, we would sing 172 two weeks out of every three.

Our music director must be your brother.  We sing that way too much.

 

2 hours ago, Vort said:

Shortly after we moved here in 1995, I learned this hymn when our bishop moved to Nebraska and we sang this hymn, his favorite, as a choir. I agree, it's beautiful, very nineteenth century, and very Utah. I don't imagine we can really squeeze it in as a normal hymn during the year, especially in rainy Seattle, but it would be nice.

Never heard of it!  Probably because we're in Florida.  But we do sing Once There Was  Snowman in Primary when most of the kids have never seen snow. 

Enjoying the youtube video of it now.  It's quite majestic.

2 hours ago, Vort said:

I remember a bare few exceptions to this rule during my lifetime. One was in State College, PA, where our organist was a young man, 20s or maybe early 30s, who wore a small diamond stud in one ear and played the hymns perfectly and very fast. I loved it. Nicest guy, and I have missed his fast tempo over the years.

Wish we had one of those.  They all play slow in my ward.  And @zil hits it right on the head.  I used to be a chorister and I would try to make eye contact with the organist to get him to follow my lead because everything was dragging.  Not happening...  But we had this one organist who is a BYU graduate from a music major.  I knew she is not playing slow because she can't play faster so I asked her if she can play faster.  And I was major surprised when she said she didn't realize she was playing slow - she was just playing in time with the congregation.  She said she's been playing in sacrament meeting for years and she doesn't follow the chorister because the chorister follows her!  So, I told her I can set the tempo if she follows me... those were awesome but she moved to Utah a few weeks after that.  I also used to ask the congregation to stand for intermediate hymn if we're playing an upbeat song which automatically gets the song played a bit faster.  But then we got a new bishop who put a kibosh to standing for intermediate hymns.

 

 

[dahlia]

On 11/1/2018 at 5:40 PM, zil said:

Actually, this would be nice a lot of the time - some pianists/organists play hymns at their slowest tempo, which is almost always too slow!  Time to play them at their fastest tempo - keep folks awake!

Apparently there is an unwritten rule in our ward that all verses of all hymns are always sung.  Maybe with the reduced meeting time, we will sing 2 verses and be done with it.  Except for 'If You Could Hie to Kolob.' I love that one. We can sing all the verses every Sunday as far as I'm concerned. 

[jerome1232]

2 hours ago, dahlia said:

Apparently there is an unwritten rule in our ward that all verses of all hymns are always sung.  Maybe with the reduced meeting time, we will sing 2 verses and be done with it.  Except for 'If You Could Hie to Kolob.' I love that one. We can sing all the verses every Sunday as far as I'm concerned. 

I demand #27, all verses! (I'm pretty sure I got the number right) 

[MarginOfError]

On 11/2/2018 at 12:26 AM, NightSG said:

Nope; 1/1,000 at best.  People may think they're coming, but really, they're just insignificant anomalies in the statistics.

It's similar to trying to deal five cards; the probability of any combination from a 52 card deck is around 2.6 million to one.  That's for every possible combination, so as you can see, it's virtually impossible to deal five cards because they'd have to form one of those ridiculously improbable combinations.

1. I think you fail to grasp the significance of the Law of Large Numbers.
2. What you describe is a paradox of frequentist statistics.  Bayesians had this figured out in the 1600s.

[Guest]

7 hours ago, MarginOfError said:

1. I think you fail to grasp the significance of the Law of Large Numbers.
2. What you describe is a paradox of frequentist statistics.  Bayesians had this figured out in the 1600s.

No, no, you see, the famed statistician Douglas Adams explained irrefutably in his magnum opus "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy".

Quote

We know there are an infinite number of planets in the universe.  It stands to reason that among those countless planets there are only a finite number of inhabited worlds. To find the average population of the universe you take the finite number of inhabited worlds and divide by the infinite total number of worlds (we get zero).  By laws of mathematics we deduce that since the average population of the universe is zero, then the total population of the universe is zero.  Therefore, none of us exist.  We're merely figments of our own imagination.

(paraphrased).

[Fether]

5 hours ago, Carborendum said:

No, no, you see, the famed statistician Douglas Adams explained irrefutably in his magnum opus "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy".

Quote

We know there are an infinite number of planets in the universe.  It stands to reason that among those countless planets there are only a finite number of inhabited worlds. To find the average population of the universe you take the finite number of inhabited worlds and divide by the infinite total number of worlds (we get zero).  By laws of mathematics we deduce that since the average population of the universe is zero, then the total population of the universe is zero.  Therefore, none of us exist.  We're merely figments of our own imagination.

That’s it... billions of years of evolution and anomalies and one man has disproved its entirety out of existence using only thought and self exposed rules.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Fether said:

That’s it... billions of years of evolution and anomalies and one man has disproved its entirety out of existence using only thought and self exposed rules.

You say that like it doesn't happen every day.

[seashmore]

In my single's wards, unless there was a new convert or pre-mission person who hadn't given many talks before, we only ever had two speakers.  Program went as follows:

Opening Exercises (announcements, song, prayer, business)
Sacrament (after hymn)
Speaker, 15-20 minutes
Rest hymn/musical number
Speaker, 15-20 minutes
Closing Exercies

My two family wards have had similar schedules:

Opening Exercises
Sacrament
Speaker, 5-7 minutes
Speaker, 10-15 minutes
Rest hymn/musical number
Speaker, 10-15 minutes
Closing Exercises

New family ward schedules could go as follows:

Opening Exercises
Sacrament
Speaker, 3-5 minutes
Speaker, 10-12 minutes
Rest hymn/musical number
Speaker, 10-12 minutes
Closing Exercises

It may take some time for long winded speakers to get used to the adjustments.

[seashmore]

On 11/1/2018 at 11:00 AM, MarginOfError said:

Having one less speaker really won't hurt anyone's feelings.  In my ward, we're planning on going to two speakers, plus the occasional (every 2 - 3 weeks) youth speaker.  If we find it difficult to fit special musical numbers in, we'll schedule youth speakers and musical numbers to be the equivalent of one adult talk, and then have one other talk that same day.

Also, you could do either a youth speaker OR musical number/rest hymn, whichever works best that week.

[askandanswer]

On 11/2/2018 at 9:40 AM, zil said:

Actually, this would be nice a lot of the time - some pianists/organists play hymns at their slowest tempo, which is almost always too slow!  Time to play them at their fastest tempo - keep folks awake!

I've been our ward organist for several years and have worked with several choristers. My wife was called to be ward chorister about a month ago. A few weeks ago we started with the opening hymn for Sacrament meeting and the congregation was dragging its feet. In about the middle of the second line, my wife stopped conducting so I stopped playing and the singing eventually stopped. She called out to the congregation "this hymn should be sung energetically." Then she looked at me and nodded. She started conducting, and I started playing, and the congregation started singing energetically. I've been playing for many years and I haven't seen that before. 

ps, a question for @Vort or @zil Is it more correct to say the congregation were dragging their feet, or the congregation was dragging its feet? Congregation being singular, I'm inclined to suspect it and were would be correct, but I'm not certain. 

[Vort]

16 minutes ago, askandanswer said:

ps, a question for @Vort or @zil Is it more correct to say the congregation were dragging their feet, or the congregation was dragging its feet? Congregation being singular, I'm inclined to suspect it and were would be correct, but I'm not certain. 

"Congregation was" sounds better to me, but "dragging its feet" sounds bad, as if the congregation is a single entity with hundreds of feet (which is technically true, but gruesome to think about). "The congregation was dragging their feet" doesn't sound good to me at all. So I guess I would probably end up going with the plural verb and say, "The congregation were dragging their feet." Dunno, maybe not. Good usage question.

[zil]

7 hours ago, askandanswer said:

I've been our ward organist for several years and have worked with several choristers. My wife was called to be ward chorister about a month ago. A few weeks ago we started with the opening hymn for Sacrament meeting and the congregation was dragging its feet. In about the middle of the second line, my wife stopped conducting so I stopped playing and the singing eventually stopped. She called out to the congregation "this hymn should be sung energetically." Then she looked at me and nodded. She started conducting, and I started playing, and the congregation started singing energetically. I've been playing for many years and I haven't seen that before. 

ps, a question for @Vort or @zil Is it more correct to say the congregation were dragging their feet, or the congregation was dragging its feet? Congregation being singular, I'm inclined to suspect it and were would be correct, but I'm not certain. 

I've seen a bishop do that, once.  Personally, I think the organist should just speed up and people and trip over their tongues until they get the hang of it.

Personally, I would say the congregation were dragging their feet, but both are "legal", it just depends whether you want to emphasize the behavior of the various individuals or the oneness of acting as a unit.  The former (were) is more British usage (but fast catching on in American usage), the latter (was) is more American usage.

[JohnsonJones]

I don't see a problem with the new schedule.  We can still have a youth speaker and then two other speakers who will speak for around 10 minutes if we so desire.  Many who speak will be glad for a reduced amount of time speaking as the last speaker.  It probably depends on how long everything else takes in your ward.  If you are typically done with Sacrament now at 20-25 past the hour that means you have a 5 minute youth speaker and then a 15 minute speaker and a 20 minute speaker.  You can shorten one if you have a musical number or rest hymn.  You can hedge your bets with a 5 minute youth (normally translates to 2-3 minutes with some exceptions who go longer than 5), and a 10-15 minute speaker and a 15-20 minute speaker along with a rest hymn or choir number. 

Sometimes everyone goes short though, and a member of the Bishopric gets up and talks (to get to the appropriate time, maybe we are just strange in that).

I'm not sure if we had the following on the hour block to only have a 5 minute youth speaker and then tell someone they get to speak for 25-30 minutes.  That's longer than our talks now!

A rest hymn will only reduce that by maybe 5 minutes typically, so they still will have a 20-35 minute talk.  Some may like that, others will dislike talking that long even more and it will be harder to get members to accept giving a talk than it already is...at least for some wards I imagine.

I suppose if you have everything take up to 35 minutes past the hour you can get away with shorter talks.  5/10/10 would still work in that format, might go a little long though.

I don't see much problem with keeping three talks throughout sacrament meeting, but shortening the amount of time they have to talk probably would be welcome from most members.

[anatess2]

12 hours ago, JohnsonJones said:

I don't see a problem with the new schedule.  We can still have a youth speaker and then two other speakers who will speak for around 10 minutes if we so desire.  Many who speak will be glad for a reduced amount of time speaking as the last speaker.  It probably depends on how long everything else takes in your ward.  If you are typically done with Sacrament now at 20-25 past the hour that means you have a 5 minute youth speaker and then a 15 minute speaker and a 20 minute speaker.  You can shorten one if you have a musical number or rest hymn.  You can hedge your bets with a 5 minute youth (normally translates to 2-3 minutes with some exceptions who go longer than 5), and a 10-15 minute speaker and a 15-20 minute speaker along with a rest hymn or choir number. 

Sometimes everyone goes short though, and a member of the Bishopric gets up and talks (to get to the appropriate time, maybe we are just strange in that).

I'm not sure if we had the following on the hour block to only have a 5 minute youth speaker and then tell someone they get to speak for 25-30 minutes.  That's longer than our talks now!

A rest hymn will only reduce that by maybe 5 minutes typically, so they still will have a 20-35 minute talk.  Some may like that, others will dislike talking that long even more and it will be harder to get members to accept giving a talk than it already is...at least for some wards I imagine.

I suppose if you have everything take up to 35 minutes past the hour you can get away with shorter talks.  5/10/10 would still work in that format, might go a little long though.

I don't see much problem with keeping three talks throughout sacrament meeting, but shortening the amount of time they have to talk probably would be welcome from most members.

We already have 60-minute sacrament meeting schedule in our ward.  We typically have 2-3 speakers with intermediate hymn before the last speaker.