Best and worst congregational singing

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By denomination, particular group of people, etc, who are the best and worst congregational participants? This is just for fun!

To my mind the best I have heard are largely African descended Methodist congregations. The worst is routinely from Ireland and Irish immigrant communities, but I suppose that is what hundreds of years of clandestine Masses will do. They just don’t sing at all.
 
The best congregational singing I’ve heard has been in Lutheran churches.
 
AbideWithMe said:
The best congregational singing I’ve heard has been in Lutheran churches.
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I’ve heard Oxford plays host to a positively raucous German Lutheran joint Carol service round Christmas. I would love to go.
 
I think we all know which the worst is likely to be. :o

And, that is not because we sing badly… but because so many of us won’t sing.

The congregational singing in some Anglican churches I have attended has been very good. Ditto for some Methodist and Pentecostal. The main thing is that everyone tries to join in.
 
These nordic-decent congregations in the Pacific NW are amazing. I mean, who needs a cantor? We’re not talking professional quality here - just a LOT of heart.

Maybe it’s all the moss…😃

Worst? Big cathedrals. The guy sitting a couple rows over from you is likely hearing a different note than you are at any given time due to wonky accoustics.
 
Okay, I know it’s not congregational, but I have to share this. 😃
Back in my fundy days we used to attend a church affiliated with Bob Jones University. They had a particular guy who would always sing a “special”. I learned later that BJU apparently trains all its students to sing this way. :confused:
Very loud, very nasally.:eek:
We dubbed him the “cowardly lion” from the lion’s only song in the Wizard of Oz: “If I were King of the forest”. I’m not kidding, he actually did sound like that. It was very hard to keep a straight face when he sang.
One time we had Bob Jones Jr. as a guest speaker, he was pretty old by then. When this guy let out the first note, Jones jumped so suddenly I thought the preacher was gonna have to do CPR.
Ah those were the days…thank God I’m Catholic again. :cool:
 
Mennonite congregations would compete for some of the best-- great harmonies and lots of participation!
 
The best congregational singing I have ever heard has been multiple times at Baptist Music Week at the Ridgecrest Center in NoCar. A thousand or so trained musicians – you can’t beat it. One year the last song sung in the last meeting of the conference was the Hallelujah Chorus, with everyone pretty much singing from memory. A choir of angels would have a hard time beating that.
 
Worst by far: Jehovah’s Witnesses. I was invited to one of their services and went out of curiosity. The hymns in their official Watchtower Bible and Tract Society hymnal were apparently composed by JWs and were uniformly bland and of low literary quality. Have these people never heard of Isaac Watts? It was by far the least enthusiastic and least spiritually inspiring church music I have ever heard. Many in the audience did not seem to be singing at all. Those who did were singing at very low decibels. No “joyful noise unto the Lord” from those people.

The best? The a capella singing during morning chapel services at the Christian college I attended.

By the way, many do not know that “a capella” literally means “in the mode of the church,” that term having been coined to describe purely vocal music of all kinds, but it reflects the historical FACT that mechanical instruments of music were not in use in the church until introduced several hundred years after the beginning of the church in 33 A.D. or thereabouts. The Eastern Rite churches continue to use only a capella music, as do Primitive Baptists, Churches of Christ, and certain conservative Presbyterian churches in the U.S. and Great Britain
 
The best I’ve heard is at my Latin Mass parish, where chant, polyphony, and hymns are sung.

The worst… I don’t even want to think about it.
 
upsidedehead said:
By the way, many do not know that “a capella” literally means “in the mode of the church,” that term having been coined to describe purely vocal music of all kinds, but it reflects the historical FACT that mechanical instruments of music were not in use in the church until introduced several hundred years after the beginning of the church in 33 A.D. or thereabouts. The Eastern Rite churches continue to use only a capella music, as do Primitive Baptists, Churches of Christ, and certain conservative Presbyterian churches in the U.S. and Great Britain
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No, I didn’t know. Thanks for the information!
 
Indifferently said:
By denomination, particular group of people, etc, who are the best and worst congregational participants? This is just for fun!

To my mind the best I have heard are largely African descended Methodist congregations. The worst is routinely from Ireland and Irish immigrant communities, but I suppose that is what hundreds of years of clandestine Masses will do. They just don’t sing at all.
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The best congregational participants do more then just sing in my opinion, they also dance. I find it to be more ethnically based then organizational based
 
dshix said:
The best I’ve heard is at my Latin Mass parish, where chant, polyphony, and hymns are sung.

The worst… I don’t even want to think about it.
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Your congregation sing polyphony and Latin hymns? Wow that’s pretty cool. I was happy enough that pursuant the psalms all the way through, but that is nowhere near as impressive.
 
4Squarebaby said:
The best congregational participants do more then just sing in my opinion, they also dance. I find it to be more ethnically based then organizational based
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Oh, I would say Lutheran hymnody and liturgy are quite ethnic, but I honestly can’t see folks dancing to it. “A Mighty Fortress”. :hmmm: 🙂

Jon
 
Indifferently said:
I love that hymn very dearly.
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Me too, but can you dance to it? 😃

4Squarebaby, please don’t take offense. I’m just teasing, and in many ways, it is more joking about Lutherans than you. I suspect most Lutherans would be scandalized by dancing during Divine Worship.

Jon
 
JonNC said:
Oh, I would say Lutheran hymnody and liturgy are quite ethnic, but I honestly can’t see folks dancing to it. “A Mighty Fortress”. :hmmm: 🙂

Jon
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Lutheran congeregations are better at singing that Catholic ones, but I don’t think they’re the best. That’s probably Baptists or Methodists, in my experience. 🙂

Worst so far is our Catholic parish. I love them dearly, but almost nobody outside the choir can carry a tune at all, and the songs we sing don’t usually help. :o
 
Kamaduck said:
Lutheran congeregations are better at singing that Catholic ones, but I don’t think they’re the best. That’s probably Baptists or Methodists, in my experience. 🙂

Worst so far is our Catholic parish. I love them dearly, but almost nobody outside the choir can carry a tune at all, and the songs we sing don’t usually help. :o
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😦 With the singing and choices of music in most Catholic parishes one has to be very much a “glass half full” person.
 
Kamaduck said:
Lutheran congeregations are better at singing that Catholic ones, but I don’t think they’re the best. That’s probably Baptists or Methodists, in my experience. 🙂

Worst so far is our Catholic parish. I love them dearly, but almost nobody outside the choir can carry a tune at all, and the songs we sing don’t usually help. :o
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The Moravians can sing, too. Ask Count Von Zinzendorf, who upon arriving in the Moravian community along the Lehigh River on Christmas Eve 1742, heard them singing and named the little settlement community Bethlehem - Pa.

Jon
 
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