Rhyming hymns and watered down theology

[ebia]

I've never heard the idea that a hymn should be pedagogical. I have always heard that it is sung prayer.

that's not an either/or, and they are pedagogical, whether that's the intention or not. Just like the psalms.

And when we pray, we are seeking a relationship with God. I think that "exalted language" can be detrimental to our relationship with God, and that it can prevent us from speaking from our hearts.

A good theological hymn doesn't necessarily use exalted language any more than a naff modern song.

I also think that pedagogical hymns can be detrimental to our relating to God in song, because it also prevents us from speaking our hearts.

that doesn't follow unless "speaking our heart" has to be shallow and thoughtless.

Making it even more important that the rest of the hymns allow people to truly pray what's in their hearts.

Corporate singing is necessarily not what may be in my heart today, and the range of emotion and thinking in the modern songs tends to be much more stunted than in the more theologically thoughtful tradition or the psalms and canticles.

I don't have a problem with rewording if it's done well except that part of the beauty of the hymns is that you learn them, and rewording old one's destroys that.

And it is perfectly possible to write excellent contemporary hymns (eg some of the stuff from Iona) - it's just they are few and far between. Although that's partly because the older stuff has been through a sifting processs - Charles Wesley wrote thousands of hymns, only a very small percentage of his best are still in regular use.

 

[Fantine]

VIsitation Choir: "O Beauty, Ever Ancient" by Roc O'Connor, S.J. - YouTube

A contemporary song with lyrics by St. Augustine which is filled with peace, love, and healing.


All Are Welcome by Marty Haugen - YouTube

A contemporary song, "All Are Welcome," which describes the ideal church community--the kind of church that we should all, individually and collectively, be trying to build.

 

[Romanist1]

There's this hymn I like...

. . . "God of Mercy and Compassion"

It's
-old / traditional
- (I'd say) moving
- "personal"
- rhymes

I think the problem with SOME of the new hymns is not the rhyming, but the lack of depth in theology. Like someone said, I don't want to sing to the sun, or the rain, I don't want to sing about "gathering", - but I want to worship God and grow in love for Him, humility, and virtue.

Well, I'm glad to have shown you it, Monica.

 

[Romanist1]

I frequent a Byzantine chapel. The Kontakions and Troparia all convey Catholic theology and are sung. They are Catholic hymns and songs with real theological "meat" to them. English Gregorian chant can be done. I mean if the High-Church Anglicans can do it and some of them are jumping ship for Rome, then I sure think that we could grab a few choir-masters, composers, and such from them . . . In addition, to having a wealth of our own.

 

[MKJ]

I think that you need to distinguish different purposes and genres of music. Chant is pretty much a way to put text that is not versified to music so that it can be more easily remembered and also louder. There are some limits to what you can do with chant - some things sound better and are easier to say than others, but to a large degree there is a great amount of freedom with the text as far as form. (Mind you, a good liturgical text IMO requires something of a poetic heart to it.) So that is why chant is really a good choice for the bulk of the liturgy.

Then there are hymns which are not in chant, and have more the form of songs or formal poems. These are much more restricted in their form. What that means depends on the poetic tradition and the language. In some languages it means a particular pattern of syllables or emphasis, or it can mean similarities in sound or rhymes. This varies considerably by language, and it can be difficult to translate form from one language to another - the different language structures may make the poetry of one language meaningless in another. Not to mention the difficulties of translating meaning and form.

So, just because you don't hear a rhyme in hymns in another language doesn't mean it isn't following a strict poetic format. In Latin for example rhyming is less important and the pattern of stresses and syllables is more important - it is also very difficult for the English speaker to even hear or notice. I had to take three years of Latin for my degree, and I was never able to "hear" Latin poetry, even though I could parse it out of a
sentence. The psalms also use poetic forms, just not rhyming ones. And in a translated poem the translator may not have been able to keep to the poetic form at all, or he may have chosen to translate into an English form.

What are the advantage of such poems over chant? If they are well done, they are easier for most people to sing, and verse is even easier to remember than chanted pieces. This can be especially good for parts of the liturgy that change every week.

But as far as the question of whether being committed to a particular form ends up in watered down theology. If you asked Shakespeare, do you think he would say using a sonnet meant that the meaning he was trying to communicate less clear? I don't think so. Poets use strict forms because they find they acttually make the meaning more clear, more distilled, and more beautiful. By having boundries the poet must be incredibly precisie, and that is also true of theological poetry.

The problem with much of the modern religious music is not that rhyming or other poetic forms lead to bad theology - it is that it is lyrics composed by poor poets who are poor theologians, and often times poor musicians too. So we end up with meaningless or even heretical drivel that is hard to sing and hard to remember.

 

[MKJ]

I would point out that the vast majority of Gregorian Chants are in Latin which make getting the Thelology across a little rough for anyone for whom Latin is not their native tougue.

Which is everybody.

I would also point out the translating Latin to English in a Gregorian Chant next to impossible to do because of the meter changes necesary, which means that serious liberities have to be taken to get the words to fit.

Which also muddles the message.

You could always try Anglican Chant....

Attwood- Psalm 50 (Anglican Chant, King's College Choir.) - YouTube

or even

Choir of Magdalen College, Oxford - Magnificat.wmv - YouTube

 

[MoNiCa4316]

Precisely. Every word of the liturgy, hymns and chants included, is crucial to conveying our theology. Don't we always say that the rule of prayer is the rule of belief?

Personally I think the West's desire for feel-good hymns has killed the theology contained in hymns. God is great, God is good, God loves everyone, yay God.

Older English hymns, even if they did rhyme, still contained a healthy dose of theology. Now, there is very little.

I am one of the rare ones who understands Latin so I like Gregorian chant. So beautiful and moving.

I went to an Orthodox church with my (Catholic) priest last year. The chant was in Greek but I had a missal. Reading the words in English was even so beautiful, almost heartbreakingly so because I ached to chant and hear such beautiful theology in my own church. Then I went to my Catholic parish and we had hymns about how the water of life is refreshing and God is good and earthen vessels. It was a culture shock, especially after having seen how beautiful the DL is.

Gwen, have you ever had a chance to attend an Eastern Catholic church? i've been a few times and the liturgy is exactly like the Orthodox, but since it's Catholic we can fully participate and receive the Sacraments it was beautiful! the other parish where I found really good music was the Latin Mass parish. There was also a Cathedral I went to that had a great choir that sang polyphony and beautiful old hymns.

I've never heard the idea that a hymn should be pedagogical. I have always heard that it is sung prayer.

And when we pray, we are seeking a relationship with God. I think that "exalted language" can be detrimental to our relationship with God, and that it can prevent us from speaking from our hearts.

I also think that pedagogical hymns can be detrimental to our relating to God in song, because it also prevents us from speaking our hearts.

Isn't it enough that we are changing the Holy, Holy to say "Lord God of Hosts" (which, I read, means "armies....")

Turning a prayer that means something to me to a prayer that means less to me, because although I realize that the God of "armies" meant something to people 5000 years ago, I think that few--if any--of us have, or would even want to have, that militaristic idea of God today. But OK, they changed the word to Lord God of "armies," rendering it irrelevant to most of us.

Making it even more important that the rest of the hymns allow people to truly pray what's in their hearts.

well there are armies: the armies of Angels in Heaven who fight against hell..

Well, I'm glad to have shown you it, Monica.

thanks!

 

[WarriorAngel]

I love Gregorian Chant even if i dont understand Latin.
Wish we had a choir who could sing like that. Almost impossible in a small parish.

Every once in while i listen to it to feel calm.

But i understand what you are asking. The more modern flavors dont have the depth. So it seems to just mesh some rhyming words together and hope for the best.

 

[Gwendolyn]

Unfortunately I have not been to an EC parish yet. There is one in the far, far south of the city where buses do not go But I think you have made an interesting observation - where chant is involved, the hymns are more theology-packed. I have observed the same in the TLM parish here in town. Even the English hymns sometimes translated from Latin were decent. I don't know why they were kind of tossed out.

Sure, there are some modern hymns that I do enjoy ("Here I am, Lord" is one of my favourites), but overall I think chant is a much more fitting sort of music for the liturgy. I guess I tend to feel that the folk songs of the 70s/80s/90s were more like devotional stuff to listen to in my spare time, rather than liturgical hymns.

 

[Romanist1]

thanks!

You are quite welcome, Monica.

 

[Simon_Templar]

I think the content of hymns and songs, in terms of theology, reflects less about the rhyming structure etc, and more about the theology of those who wrote them and sing them.

If hymns have simplistic or bad theology, its largely because the people who wrote them and those who continue to sing them either have simplistic/bad theology, or they don't view theology as important.

An example of that would be people who believe how they feel when singing is more important than what they actually sing.

 

[Romanist1]

Good points, Simon.

 

[Fantine]

An example of that would be people who believe how they feel when singing is more important than what they actually sing.

In Music Theory I, my professor told us the standard definition of music:

The art or science of combining vocal or instrumental sounds (or both) to produce beauty of form, harmony, and expression of emotion

Yes, there are songs that are meant to teach:

"Conjunction Junction, What's Your Function?"

"A-B-C'

"Multiplication Rock"

Using music for pedagogy is, I suppose, appropriate for "Sesame Street" and young children. And, since Catholicism was preached to a primarily illiterate world throughout history, and to illiterate people in the third world today, perhaps some simple pedagogical material set to music might be instructive,

But people come to Church to lift their hearts to God, and they sing to express the primary purpose of music--form, harmony, and expression of emotion.

 

[MKJ]

In Music Theory I, my professor told us the standard definition of music:




Yes, there are songs that are meant to teach:

"Conjunction Junction, What's Your Function?"

"A-B-C'

"Multiplication Rock"

Using music for pedagogy is, I suppose, appropriate for "Sesame Street" and young children. And, since Catholicism was preached to a primarily illiterate world throughout history, and to illiterate people in the third world today, perhaps some simple pedagogical material set to music might be instructive,

But people come to Church to lift their hearts to God, and they sing to express the primary purpose of music--form, harmony, and expression of emotion.

That is a very Romantic view of music. I don't think Bach would be down with that.

 

[AMDG]

Using music for pedagogy is, I suppose, appropriate for "Sesame Street" and young children. And, since Catholicism was preached to a primarily illiterate world throughout history, and to illiterate people in the third world today, perhaps some simple pedagogical material set to music might be instructive,

But people come to Church to lift their hearts to God, and they sing to express the primary purpose of music--form, harmony, and expression of emotion.

Yet it is still true that how we pray (speak, sing) is how we believe.

 

[isshinwhat]

Exactly.

Precisely. Every word of the liturgy, hymns and chants included, is crucial to conveying our theology. Don't we always say that the rule of prayer is the rule of belief?

Personally I think the West's desire for feel-good hymns has killed the theology contained in hymns. God is great, God is good, God loves everyone, yay God.

Older English hymns, even if they did rhyme, still contained a healthy dose of theology. Now, there is very little.

I am one of the rare ones who understands Latin so I like Gregorian chant. So beautiful and moving.

I went to an Orthodox church with my (Catholic) priest last year. The chant was in Greek but I had a missal. Reading the words in English was even so beautiful, almost heartbreakingly so because I ached to chant and hear such beautiful theology in my own church. Then I went to my Catholic parish and we had hymns about how the water of life is refreshing and God is good and earthen vessels. It was a culture shock, especially after having seen how beautiful the DL is.

 

[Fantine]

That is a very Romantic view of music. I don't think Bach would be down with that.

And what is pedagogical about "In Dulci Jubilo" (except that it is in two languages, German and Latin...)

Or "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring?"

But Bach's music survives because of the emotions it evokes--whether it is an invention, sinfonia, prelude, fugue, chorale, concerto.

 

[MKJ]

And what is pedagogical about "In Dulci Jubilo" (except that it is in two languages, German and Latin...)

Or "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring?"

But Bach's music survives because of the emotions it evokes--whether it is an invention, sinfonia, prelude, fugue, chorale, concerto.

Music does evoke emotions - sometimes that is the primary purpose of a piece. That doesn't mean it is the whole purpose.

Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring is theological and didactic - it is part of a cantata on the Annunciation. I'm not sure how you could conclude that it wasn't theological.

In Dulci Jubilo is also theologically correct, the literal English translation says:

In sweet rejoicing,
now sing and be glad!
Our hearts' joy
lies in the manger;
And it shines like the sun
in the mother's lap.
You are the alpha and omega!

Even a loose vernacular adaptation is didactic when sung at the appropriate time, and is theologically sound if a little less usefull:

Good Christian men, rejoice
With heart, and soul, and voice;
Give ye heed to what we say:
News! News!
Jesus Christ was born to-day:
Ox and ass before Him bow,
And He is in the manger now.
Christ is born today! Christ is born today.

The Romantics thought music was primarily about emotion. But that hasn't been the most widely held view in human history.

 

[Fantine]

In Dulci Jubilo is also theologically correct, the literal English translation says:

In sweet rejoicing,
now sing and be glad!
Our hearts' joy
lies in the manger;
And it shines like the sun
in the mother's lap.
You are the alpha and omega!

Three adjectives connoting emotion. One metaphor.

One "theological truth" which is certainly not specific to any particular denomination.

I would call those lyrics primarily poetic and emotional--not didactic.

Jesu, joy of man's desiring
Holy wisdom, love most bright

Drawn by Thee, our souls aspiring
Soar to uncreated light

Word of God, our flesh that fashioned
With the fire of life impassioned
Striving still to truth unknown
Soaring, dying round Thy throne

Four metaphors. Lots of adjectives.

"Striving still to truth unknown" doesn't sound that doctrinaire to me...instead it speaks of man's search for truth within his own heart and soul (as supposed to the pages of a catechism, for example.)

 

[JimR-OCDS]

Today, I'm heading to St Joseph's Abbey for a week-end retreat.

The Trappist's sing the translated the Gregorian Chant hymns in English, which makes them more beautiful, as they are understood.



Jim