Playing hymns, part 2
Last month I outlined a protocol for practicing and learning hymns. In essence, this simply amounts to remembering to take them seriously and to practice them carefully. However, there are a few special features to the approach I suggested, especially that the player should concentrate most heavily on putting together the left hand and the pedals. That combination is important in practicing any music, but seems to be even more so with hymns. This month I want to talk about some musical/interpretive aspects of hymn playing, and how they tie in with the learning process and the type of technical command that the player develops through careful practicing. In particular, among other things, I want to talk about repeated notes and the role that they play in all of this.
There are several things to say about the musical role of the organist in playing hymns in church. First of all—to express a very positive goal in usefully negative terms—the organist must not upset the singers (the congregation) or make it hard for them to sing. This is not to say that the organist should never challenge preconceptions, or do things in a way that wakes people up and asks them to see (hear) things in a new way. But the organist must not allow shakiness or wrong notes or unconvincing rhythm to make it hard for people to sing. No one wants to make wrong notes in repertoire pieces: however, everyone does so at least once in a while, and as long as those wrong notes are minor, and as long as the player keeps things going, it is never a catastrophe. In accompanying hymns it is important—more so than in playing pieces—not to make wrong notes, especially in the line that carries the hymn tune itself. It is extraordinarily important not to break rhythm or to let an occasional wrong note interfere with everything that is going on around it.
(This of course is a further reason to take the practicing of hymns very seriously: not only are they not as easy as it sometimes seems that they should be, but the stakes in the realm of basic accuracy are higher than with other types of playing.)
The second responsibility of the hymn accompanist is to provide a rhythmic foundation for the singers. In a sense, this part of the role of the organist is a combination of that of a conductor, a continuo-player, and the rhythm section of a rock group. If a room full of people who are not trained musicians are going to sing together with a feeling of confidence and relaxation, it helps for them to hear a strong, convincing pulse in the accompaniment. This serves the basic function of orienting the singers to where they are in the music. It enables them to use the accompaniment rather than their fellow singers as a reference point. It also, apart from the purely practical, gives a sense of liveliness and energy that will keep people awake and make them feel that they want to sing.
In fact, it is usually not the job of the organist to teach the hymn tune or to lead the melody as such. Most of the time, most of the congregation already knows most of the hymns being sung. When this is the case, the role of the organist’s playing of the hymn melody is like the role of the printed music in a piece that a player knows well: it is a touchstone or a reminder, not a practical, note-by-note, source of information. If a hymn is utterly new to the congregation, then the accompanying of that hymn in the service comes essentially too late to teach the tune to the congregation. Some people will pick it up, some people won’t. (In a church in which new hymns are introduced regularly, it might be nice to create an opportunity for interested members of the congregation to learn those new hymns. This could take the form of a once a month hymn-sing during which some old favorites—perhaps ones that don’t make it into the service very often—can be sung for fun, and the new hymns planned for the coming month can be taught. Of course some churches indeed do things of this sort.)
Another responsibility of the organist is to create and sustain the appropriate mood for each hymn. This is accomplished in part by registration (about which more below), in part by tempo, and in part by the same repertoire of interpretive tools that are available in playing any kind of music: timing, phrasing, rubato, articulation, agogic accent, arpeggiation, and so on. Certainly the tools that cause the music to depart from the metronomic accent—rubato, agogic accent, etc.—raise the concern that they will make it hard or impossible for untrained singers, with no rehearsal, to follow. However, it seems to me that, within reason (that is, within what experience shows to work) a convincing rhythm is easier to follow than a merely steady rhythm. Some shaping of beats and phrases using departures from strict metronomic rhythm will draw the singers along and orient them as to where the music is going. Of course this must be approached carefully and within a given student’s overall approach to articulation and rhythm.
(I myself used to play “For All the Saints” in a way that involved a greater or lesser degree of ritard in the couple of measures leading to the “Alleluia” in each of the six verses, culminating in an amount of “extra” time that was nearly a measure’s worth by the last verse. My impression is that no one had trouble following this, and that it intensified the emotional impact of the experience.)
So how do repeated notes fit in to all of this? Of course there is a long tradition in hymn playing of treating repeated notes as an issue unto themselves. Almost every student with whom I have worked—who has previously played or studied hymns—has picked up along the way the idea that repeated notes should be tied under certain defined circumstances: when they are in inner voices, in the pedal, in voices that don’t carry the hymn tune, within a given measure (i.e., not crossing a bar line), or some other rule. Or, on the other hand, that tying repeated notes is “old-fashioned” and that accuracy demands that they all be played as written. Some of these ideas have reflected the views of teachers or writers about organ playing, some have been heard “on the street” among fellow students or colleagues. For some, the overall effect of having heard many different ideas about how to play repeated notes in hymns has been to make the whole subject seem intimidating and confusing: yet another opportunity to get something wrong.
The main problem with repeated notes in hymns is that, if they are actually repeated, they can create a feeling of “choppiness.” This is one of the greatest enemies of singing, and, in organ playing, one of the effects that is least conducive to helping people sing. If a hymn is being played with full-fledged, traditional legato, then a repeated note that is repeated crisply will sound quite different from the notes around it. If there are many repeated notes—as there usually are in the inner voices of hymns for the reasons mentioned last month—then this can certainly lead to an overall effect of choppiness. If the style of playing a particular hymn is non-legato, then repeated notes will stand out less. Still, however, if the repetitions are done too crisply or with any degree of stiffness, they will stand out somewhat, and contribute some of the same kind of choppiness. It is almost certainly this fear of choppiness that has led organists and organ teachers over the years to develop systems for avoiding, to a greater or lesser extent, the actual playing of repeated notes in hymns.
On the other hand, on the organ in particular, with its sustaining power, long held notes have the potential to deaden rhythmic motion and to create heaviness. This is probably why some organists consider it a very bad idea to ever tie over any repeated notes in hymns. (No one ever suggests, as far as I know, tying over any repeated notes in pieces of repertoire!) Also, of course, if members of the congregation happen to be singing voices other than the hymn tune, and it is in those voices that the organist sustains rather than repeats some notes, then those singers will not be getting the rhythmic reinforcement that is the best help that the organist can offer to any singers. They will be getting their pitches, but, some of the time, only their pitches.
I think that it is useful for students to have all of this sketched out for them, not as a situation that is governed by rules, and especially not as a situation in which not knowing or somehow violating the rules will lead to having done something wrong, but rather as a situation in which there are competing musical needs that perhaps can be reconciled, or that at least need to be juggled.
The key to reconciling those needs is—or begins with—playing any repeated notes with as much musical control and as little inherent choppiness as possible. This is best served I believe (see The Diapason January 2009) by changing fingers or feet on repeated notes as much as possible, and also by using as light and smooth a touch as possible. As I mentioned last month, the ideal fingering for a pair or group of repeated notes cannot always be achieved in the right hand part of a hymn when that part includes both of the two upper voices—though it can sometimes or often be achieved, with ingenuity and practice—but the lightness always can be. A note that needs to be repeated should always be released lightly, and released in time that the next note (the repetition) can be played on time. The amount of space between repeated notes can be varied over a very wide spectrum: from as close to legato as is consistent with releasing the first note comfortably to fully staccato, with the first note released as quickly as physically possible. The very act of treating different repeated notes differently in a passage that contains many repeated notes will help prevent them from seeming stiff or choppy, and from deadening the rhythm.
All of this is especially important in hymns because a musically fruitful articulation of repeated notes without abruptness or choppiness but with pulse, accent and rhythm can greatly enhance the overall sense of pulse of the playing. This in turn enhances the usefulness of the playing for those singing. A student should be encouraged to listen for the rhythm of repeated note passages in particular, and to experiment with varying the amount of articulation between repeated notes in a way that gives the right rhythmic shape to the line. The most direct way of practicing this is the best:
1) Select a hymn that has, if possible, an almost exaggerated number of repeated notes, such as the tunes known as Webb, Finlandia, Bishopgarth, or Rest.
2) Choose a voice to work on that has a lot of repeated notes, for example the tenor voice in Webb (“The Morning Light Is Breaking” and other words) or the pedal line of Lancashire (“Lead on, O King Eternal” and others).
3) Play that line by itself, shaping the repeated notes in such a way that the line all by itself has direction and pulse, and is interesting to listen to. This can be done with subtlety, but also can be exaggerated, just for practice. In any case, it should be based on making strong beats longer than weak beats, making sure that upbeats move effectively to their points of arrival, and putting breaths between phrases. Whatever amounts of space are placed between different repeated notes, the physical gestures should be light and smooth.
4) Then add back the rest of the texture, but listen primarily to the repeated-note-heavy line that was just practiced. Try to hear the rhythm of those repeated notes enlivening the pulse from within.
In a hymn whose overall style is upbeat or jaunty, the articulations of repeated notes, shaped in accordance with the dictates of the meter, pulse, and rhythm, should probably be greater (even perhaps actually corresponding to the “exaggerated” practice). In calmer, quieter, more languid hymns, they should be less, more subtle. If the student feels, having gone through a process like this, that some repeated notes still sound out of place, choppy or disruptive, so that the pulse and flow would be better served by tying them, then he or she should probably go ahead and tie them. Since a “hymn”—in the sense in which we are talking about it—is a practical accompaniment, it should not be considered against any sort of law to alter it: the point is to find what really works. I myself have certainly tied repeated notes in hymns, but only occasionally, and only after trying it out “as written.”
Approached this way, I believe that repeated notes in hymns, while they will still present questions about which there might be disagreement, can cease to be a problem or a worry. In fact I think that repeated notes can lead the way in suggesting convincing rhythmic shape in a hymn.
(To some extent, the organist’s awareness of whether or not congregation members are in fact singing inner voices must influence choices about changing the rhythm of those inner voices: if people are singing them, it is a courtesy to those singers to make sure that those voices are clear and as vivid as possible.)
When it comes to registration, the essential problem presented by hymns is that the practical needs of the situation limit choices about volume. A hymn must be loud enough that everyone can hear it easily and be “conducted” by it without having to strain. It should not be so loud that it drowns out the singers, especially in their own ears. This can be a frustrating set of limits, especially if the organ is smallish. It can seem as if there are very few acceptable hymn registrations. This in turn comes into conflict with a desire for the registrations not to seem too much the same. If they are, this can be deadening to the overall mood for singing, or just plain boring. Certainly it seems like a good idea to change sounds from one verse to another as much as possible, and also for all of the hymns sung on a given day not to sound too much the same. The main two points that I think students can bear in mind are the following: it is worth trying out registrations during practice, patiently, more or less in the ways I discussed in The Diapason in April–June 2008, taking the process as seriously as one would with a concert piece; and, it is usually better to make very small changes in registration from one verse to another than to make no change at all: that is, a small or subtle change in sound is usually enough to enliven the listening and singing experience.
