Sing UP!

What is your church like at singing?

Anecdotal evidence and the lived experience of many would seem to suggest that congregational singing is in many churches, if not all of them, much poorer than it used to be. This is not a wholly new development. As long ago as 2008, the now defunct magazine The Briefing carried an article entitled “The Slow Death of Congregational Singing”.

In many ways, it is a strange development. It is not as though people as a whole have forgotten how to sing. Amateur choirs have blossomed in recent years. Listen to the singing at any football match, and you will quickly realise that most people have not lost their singing voices!

If your church is among the many that seemingly have an issue with congregational singing, it is perhaps worth asking a few questions. Is the organ or music group so loud, for example, that it drowns out the congregation? Alternatively, is it too quiet, even diffident? Does the PA system help or hinder? These are practical issues.

But there are also fundamental musical issues: are some of the new songs which congregations are invited to sing actually singable by a congregation? The simple answer in the case of many, if not all, would seem to be “no”, because in fact they were written for bands or music groups, with a pitch and tune that are frankly difficult. Many fashionable tunes today are simply much harder for ordinary church members to master than the old, steady, metric hymn tunes.

Congregational singing is important, as Ephesians 5v19 and Colossians 3v16 make clear. New songs need careful choosing on not only theological but musical grounds, and then they need careful, patient teaching to congregations. And maybe singing the “golden oldies” – Great is thy Faithfulness; To God be the Glory; Praise My Soul; How Firm a Foundation – and singing them with their traditional, more singable tunes, is not such a bad thing after all!