Thoughts on Hymns: "I Heard The Bells"

In our introduction to this site we referenced "Just a Closer Walk With Thee" along with a few comments about diminished chords and chromatic scales. In addition to this, looking at yet another hymn - "I Heard The Bells On Christmas Day" - may be helpful for several reasons. It has similar use of chords and also chromatic intervals are found in its melody. It too is typical for having so many chords to contend with (relating to its SATB arrangement for vocals). For guitar it can be a challenge to find chord voicing that complements what the melody and the harmonies are doing. And it is challenging too for playing on a piano or keyboard. (Following SATB arrangements and finding the notes, for me, seems like "herding cats." They - the alto, tenor and bass parts - keep moving about.) What I am finding fascinating is that it is these vocal movements that create the diverse harmonies and chords, and just like the melody, they too become a familiar and recognized part of the song. And to then hear just the melody, without its harmony, becomes lacking and less familiar. All this being said, there are other reasons why I find this song so interesting to use as an example for this post.
     Ignoring the music, for a moment, and considering just its words, its lyrics, brings up a profound realization. The story behind this song is very unique (written first as a poem) and very similar to other hymns whose words are powerful statements speaking of when they were written. Of course the story behind "Amazing Grace" is a prime example and probably the most familiar one. The story too behind the hymn "Now Thank We All Our God" is one worth reading. There are many others too (as can be found through a quick web search). All this brings to mind, what is a hymn? At times it seems the answer is found in the lyrics, and the stories behind the words, rather than in its music.
     "I Heard The Bells On Christmas Day" was written in 1863 in the midst of the Civil War and during a time of many personal challenges for Henry Longfellow who first crafted these thoughts. (Would suggest you give this song a web search if you're not familiar with its story.) Years later this poem was put to music, and years after that to yet different music, years later yet again, etc. And currently (within the last few years) yet another new - contemporary - version of melody and music has been applied to these lyrics.... Again, what is a hymn?

 

     The hymnal shown above was my great-grandfather Dice's. It is full of hymns, and like the book of Psalms, no music. It does have a code system though (meter) for singing these words as song lyrics. Melodies - familiar hymn tunes - were then assigned to the lyrics for singing. To me, this places the significance more with the words themselves, and what they have to say, rather than the music. (Maybe there is a lesson here for different approaches to songwriting.)
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     So when music is added to the powerfully written words of Longfellow, maybe it is not a problem that over the years different melodies have been used. This song was introduced to me by someone who knew it with the music that was added by John (Jean) Calkin in 1872 - using a tune he had written earlier in 1848 (as seen in page below from The Celebration Hymnal).

Songsheet: I Heard The Bells On Christmas Day (pdf)

    My first step was to go through and try and figure out all the chords which is a challenge. This song did not seem like one that I would normally try to do with guitar, though with enough trying, I am now glad to add it to my growing list of favorite hymns. The video below, is from an initial attempt to see how they (guitar with hymnal score) worked together. For guitar playing this has since been refined. One of the chords I thought could be skipped turned out to be needed; this along with other refinements are being worked on.

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    So in light of this song being part of one of my initial blog articles, maybe the timing of when I first learned of it and its relevance to the upcoming Advent season is of added significance. And its story too continues for its appropriateness, even today, for its poetic lyrics and heart felt plea. Its relevance and its story lives on.
    Offered with humility and with thoughts of peace....
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A Favorite Hymn, "What A Friend"

This hymn is just too fun for adding sevens, and for trying different chord voicings (and unusual for a hymn in that it is just three chords - E, A, & B - for all of it).... And for the video quality, and audio, (and my singing) I do realize I need to work on improvements....

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INTRO

Welcome and by way of introduction, not sure how best to describe this site. To simply say it is about music is inadequate, though since this is a work in progress and new, it would be too limiting to try to describe and predict what is yet to come. The idea then becomes to first note some earlier efforts at sharing on this topic - of music - online. By looking at past efforts maybe this can be a clue as to the direction this may take from here on out.

     Years ago we had toyed around with creating a Youtube channel though the idea of using this channel by itself seemed lacking and the effort (other than a few test videos) really did not go anywhere (and was left abandoned and rather hidden). The example video shown above is from 2011, and the music is from years prior. Creating videos is new to us, though the idea of creating original compositions (with guitar and/or piano) has been an ongoing interest decades in the making. The idea of taking this interest to the point of also creating songs with lyrics, well that has been a bit more challenging.
      Years prior to trying out Youtube, when we first tried to cover this topic of music online, our options were rather limited. At that time learning how to create webpages seemed our only avenue. The site did include an ancient attempt at writing about "sound and vibrations" (which includes squiggly lines from when creating animated GIFs was also new for me; one visitor questioning why once clicked they did not make a sound! I guess my writing, and presentation, needs some work for refining). (Some of this content, relating to Sound and Vibrations, can now be found found here.)
    Also shown on the site were some instructional sheets (as PDFs) we had created as handouts for using during our instructional guitar sessions with various youth at our church. (As had happened with the video channel, the website too was eventually abandoned.) (Some of these PDF documents can now be found found here.)
     In addition to videos and webpages at times we may also post audio files though not sure yet what the best way is for sharing these. Due to limitations with what can be done within this blog site, and limitations for what works on a Youtube channel, the storing of actual audio files seems not an option. The samples below (with HTML5 coding being used for their player controls) link to files stored elsewhere and may not work for some browsers/. For now though, if they do work for you, hopefully they too can serve as examples towards describing our overall intent for this blog site.



     The test audio shown above links to an original composition (guitar) and I do not recall what this actually is for playing. I found it mixed in with years worth of old files. And per notes it seems at the time I must have been trying to incorporate a half diminished seven chord into a key of E chord progression. Often new compositions are created solely for incorporating new chords and voicing of chords I am trying to learn.
      At times too we will try to provide documents, such as for showing song sheets, for some of our posts. Not sure yet what the best way of doing this is either. Initially some may be as PDF pages, and others may be as shared cloud documents.



Songsheet: Just A Closer Walk With Thee (pdf)

     A favorite hymn of mine is "Just A Closer Walk With Thee" and the audio (above) is with guitar and voices. For thoughts on music structure, this song too is an example (along with many others) of how intriguing it is to see diminished chords being used in SATB hymn arrangements. As the four vocal parts move around, with the alto part, or the tenor, or the bass, moving to some unusual notes sometimes they create seemingly unusual chords. Also of interest to me with this song is how chromatic notes are found within the melody itself - three notes going up using half steps, then different haft steps used for descending notes (with one transitional chord being a diminished).
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     Hopefully for this blog site with all of these avenues - for including video, for links to external sites, for including audio samples, and for showing documents - maybe we can now revisit this ongoing effort and desire to share thoughts on the broad topic of music.
     Thanks for your visit, and please understand and tolerate the unpolished and unrefined nature of our initial offerings... Enjoy....
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