Singing harmony at mass

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ericka1701

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Why is only the melody line written in the hymnals. I’m a musician (or I’m trying to be 😉 ), and have been wanting to try to play some of the songs on my piano at home.

God Bless!
 
ericka1701 said:
Why is only the melody line written in the hymnals. I’m a musician (or I’m trying to be 😉 ), and have been wanting to try to play some of the songs on my piano at home.

God Bless!
Click to expand...
A couple reasons:
  1. space
  2. readability for congregational use
  3. copyright and license issues
Many of the hymns are in the public domain, as far as the melodies go, but the specific accompaniments are not. So, to minimize costs, the public domain portions are in the missalette and/or music issue.

Also, adding the harmonies (in 4-part chorale format) at least doubles the space needed (moving to grand staff ) for the music, tho’ not normally increasing the space for the words. Further, 4 part on 2 lines is confusing for many casual music readers; they have trouble following if more than one note is present.
 
Hi,

You could try to find a choir hymnal–Choral praise is a very common one with full music for most hymns (over 600).

I’m sure there are many others offered.

Lux
 
There are normally multiple editions made of each hymnal - for example, one with words only; one with words and melody; one with words, melody and guitar chords; and one with full harmonisations for the organ. For most congregations, the one with the words (& maybe the melody) only is sufficient, so these are the ones that the church buys most of - they are usually only a fraction of the cost of the big organ editions. Normally the church will have one or two organ copies so as organist and congregation can literally sing from the same hymn sheet! Indeed, some publishers will have special offers where they might give a full accompaniment copy of the hymnal with every X amount of congregation copies purchased… I would suggest that you get your hands on a full organ copy - though it will probably be quite expensive if you have to buy it for yourself if your church hasn’t got one… If you are able to read chord symbols, a guitar edition may suffice and it would help develop your musical training as you won’t feel tied to a specific harmonisation which might well happen if you have the organ edition!!
 
NPC is right. Our national hymnal, CBW III, is offered as “Pew Edition” (melody line only – $22), “Choir Edition” (full harmony, guitar and keyboard arrangement, – $37) & “Instrumentalist Edition” (2 vol., same content as Choir edition but coil bound to lay flat – $90)
 
ericka1701 said:
Why is only the melody line written in the hymnals. I’m a musician (or I’m trying to be 😉 ), and have been wanting to try to play some of the songs on my piano at home.

God Bless!
Click to expand...
simply go on line to the publisher or call them and purchase the version written for organ or other accompaniment, or for choir voices. the version in the pew is for congregational singing, so it makes no sense to pay for everything else they don’t need.
 
Odd then that many Protestant hymnals come only with the four-part harmonization. It is almost expected that one will sing their appropriate voice part during hymns in a Protestant church.

On more than one occassion where I’ve been in a Protestant church for a wedding or funeral (not including my paid organist gig) where the pastor or organist has tried to “recruit” me for their church choir because they could hear me singing the tenor part.

Never seems to happen in a Catholic Church where I’m singing melody with the rest of the Congregation, although when the Byzantine Church got their new pew books, the church I go to when I visit my in-laws tried to recruit me because I could sing the new music.
 
MusicMan said:
On more than one occassion where I’ve been in a Protestant church for a wedding or funeral (not including my paid organist gig) where the pastor or organist has tried to “recruit” me for their church choir because they could hear me singing the tenor part.
Click to expand...
That reminds me of a joke… What is a soprano who can read music? An alto. 😃 And since all jokes have their basis in truth, I can attest that I have been assigned alto many times although I am most definately a mezzo-soprano comfortably, soprano if I push myself. I did take 8 years of voice lessons (and about 10 of piano plus quite a few years in band), so I know the language of music pretty well. I do go online and try to find the song I want to play and get at least the chords, but I prefer trying to play full sheet music. I’ll see if my parish does have a choral version of the hymnal, and at least make a copy. I was told by my old piano teacher that copy music was permissible if it were only used for practice.

Thanks to everyone for their replies!

Ericka
 
Actually, publishing houses like GIA sell choral hymnals which have the harmonies. These might be of some help to you.
 
ericka1701 said:
And since all jokes have their basis in truth, I can attest that I have been assigned alto many times although I am most definately a mezzo-soprano comfortably, soprano if I push myself.
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Top Ten Reasons for Being an Alto:
10) You get really good at singing E flat.
09) You get to sing the same note for 12 consecutive measures.
08) You don’t really need to warm up to sing 12 consecutive bars of E flat.
07) If the choir really sucks, it’s unlikely the Altos will be blamed.
06) You have lots of time to chat during Soprano solos.
05) You get to pretend that you are better than the Sopranos, because everybody knows that women only sing soprano so they don’t have to learn to read music.
04) You can sometimes find part time work singing Tenor.
03) Altos get all the great intervals.
02) When the Sopranos are holding some outrageously high note at the end of an anthem, the Altos always get the last words.
01) When the Altos miss a note, nobody gets hurt.
 
ericka1701 said:
Why is only the melody line written in the hymnals. I’m a musician (or I’m trying to be 😉 ), and have been wanting to try to play some of the songs on my piano at home.

God Bless!
Click to expand...
I do not know if you are willing to make the investment, but GIA also has a keyboard binder that might help you. We bought it for our Worship III hymnals to use whenver the organ conks out.
 
Most traditional hymns are nothing more than four-part chorales, and the accompaniments for them are just the four-parts themselves.

The newer “contemporary” Catholic music is often just a melody part (and maybe a descant or alto part) with a piano accompaniment.

The last time I obtained a copy of GIA’s Gather Comprensive, the accompaniment books were $80. I believe that a Choir hymnal for that series is close to $40.

I don’t know anything about the OCP books these days. I think my old 1988 Music Issue Accompaniment book (which I still have and even use) cost $30 and then their “binder” Accompaniment book (which I have a first edition of that didn’t survive nearly as well) ran $60.

Sadly, lots of the current editions have, for whatever reason, edited out or simplified out the original introductions (and codas), and while you never really heard people play them that often, I do miss the long, musical intros for songs like On Eagle’s Wings, Gather Us In, Glory and Praise to Our God, and so forth. And yes, on the rare occassion where I find myself having to play Gather Us In, I do unearth a copy of the full intro and use it.
 
ericka1701 said:
Why is only the melody line written in the hymnals. I’m a musician (or I’m trying to be 😉 ), and have been wanting to try to play some of the songs on my piano at home.

God Bless!
Click to expand...
Join the choir and that will take care of your problem since you’ll have access to the three and/or four part hymnals.
 
Erich, thanks for the joke! It was great! Most of the choirs I have been in, though, the alto was a bit more difficult than the soprano, and plus if it wasn’t the melody, most people in the choir had a bit of trouble with learning it. Money has been tight lately (hasn’t it been for everyone), and I have been slowly saving up for Liturgy of the Hours, but I think that I might buy an old hymnal. I’ll check out ebay. Mom just bought a 1962 missal for me for Christmas. She may perturb me at times, but I still love her. 😃

God Bless!
Ericka
 
I came from the southern gospel Baptist/Pentecostal tradition where hamony singing was the norm. I miss it. On the old hymns I can improvise a bass line, but I don’t even bother with the melody on the Haugen/Hass Hootenany numbers.

DaveBj
 
At the new church year, OCP just redid all their accompaniment books… if your church uses OCP, they might have the old ones to discard.
 
benedictgal said:
Actually, publishing houses like GIA sell choral hymnals which have the harmonies. These might be of some help to you.
Click to expand...
This is true. Our choir has the GIA Worship III choir hymnals with the four-part harmony. Since my husband and I were part of that choir for many years, we knew the harmony by heart and basically will sing harmony down in the pews. My dad, never was part of a choir although loved to sing, always made up his own harmony to any hymn and even any piece of music he heard from as far back as I can remember. (He was a trumpet player through high school so knew a little music.) So, I grew up always hearing vocal harmony at mass - at least in the bass or even tenor voices. 🙂

It is a shame that they don’t have those hymnals in the pews. The Episcopal and Anglican churches I’ve been in have the four-part harmony.

Also with many of the older, traditional hymns, the piano or organ part is many times the four-part vocal parts, so you might be able to find some sheet music that has that.
 
Erich said:
Top Ten Reasons for Being an Alto:
10) You get really good at singing E flat.
09) You get to sing the same note for 12 consecutive measures.
08) You don’t really need to warm up to sing 12 consecutive bars of E flat.
07) If the choir really sucks, it’s unlikely the Altos will be blamed.
06) You have lots of time to chat during Soprano solos.
05) You get to pretend that you are better than the Sopranos, because everybody knows that women only sing soprano so they don’t have to learn to read music.
04) You can sometimes find part time work singing Tenor.
03) Altos get all the great intervals.
02) When the Sopranos are holding some outrageously high note at the end of an anthem, the Altos always get the last words.
01) When the Altos miss a note, nobody gets hurt.
Click to expand...
Love it!!! I’m a mezzo-soprano and sang both the alto and soprano parts when I sang in choirs to strengthen my sight-reading skills and because I like singing the harmony for many renaissance pieces. It’s so true that there is always a grain of truth in jokes like this.

You have the top ten reasons to be an alto. Here are the top ten reasons to be a soprano, tenor and bass:

Top Ten Reasons to Be a Soprano
  1. The rest of the choir exists just to make you look good.
  2. You can entertain your friends by breaking their wine glasses.
  3. Can you name an opera where the Alto got the man?
  4. When Sopranos want to sing in the shower, they know the tune.
  5. It’s not like you’re ever going to sing the Alto part by mistake.
  6. Great costumes - like the hat with the horns on it…
  7. How many famous Altos can you name?
  8. When the fat lady sings, she’s usually singing Soprano.
  9. When you get tired of singing the melody, you can sing the descant.
  10. You can sing along with Michael Jackson.
Top Ten Reasons to Be a Tenor
  1. Tenors get high - without drugs.
  2. Name a musical when the Bass got the girl.
  3. You can show the Sopranos how it SHOULD be sung.
  4. Did you ever hear of anyone paying $1000 for a ticket to see the Three Basses?
  5. Who needs brains when you’ve got resonance?
  6. Tenors never have to waste time looking through the self improvement section of the bookstore.
  7. You get to sing along with John Denver singing “High Calypso”.
  8. When you get really good at falsetto, you can make tons of money doing voice-overs for cartoon characters.
  9. Gregorian Chant was practically invented for Tenors; nobody ever invented a genre for Basses.
  10. You can entertain your friends by imitating Julia Child.
Top Ten Reasons to Be a Bass
  1. You don’t have to tighten your shorts to reach your note.
  2. You don’t have to worry about a woman stealing your job.
  3. Or a preadolescent boy.
  4. Action heroes are always Basses. That is - if they ever sang, they would sing Bass.
  5. You get great memorable lyrics like “bop, bop, bop, bop, bop”.
  6. If the singing job doesn’t work out, there’s always broadcasting.
  7. You never need to learn to read the treble clef.
  8. If you get a cold, so what?!!
  9. For fun, you can sing at the bottom of your range and fool people into thinking there’s an earthquake.
  10. If you belch while you’re singing, the audience will just think it’s part of the score.
 
Sarabande said:
Love it!!! I’m a mezzo-soprano and sang both the alto and soprano parts when I sang in choirs to strengthen my sight-reading skills and because I like singing the harmony for many renaissance pieces. It’s so true that there is always a grain of truth in jokes like this.

You have the top ten reasons to be an alto. Here are the top ten reasons to be a soprano, tenor and bass:

Top Ten Reasons to Be a Soprano
  1. The rest of the choir exists just to make you look good.
  2. You can entertain your friends by breaking their wine glasses.
  3. Can you name an opera where the Alto got the man?
  4. When Sopranos want to sing in the shower, they know the tune.
  5. It’s not like you’re ever going to sing the Alto part by mistake.
  6. Great costumes - like the hat with the horns on it…
  7. How many famous Altos can you name?
  8. When the fat lady sings, she’s usually singing Soprano.
  9. When you get tired of singing the melody, you can sing the descant.
  10. You can sing along with Michael Jackson.
Top Ten Reasons to Be a Tenor
  1. Tenors get high - without drugs.
  2. Name a musical when the Bass got the girl.
  3. You can show the Sopranos how it SHOULD be sung.
  4. Did you ever hear of anyone paying $1000 for a ticket to see the Three Basses?
  5. Who needs brains when you’ve got resonance?
  6. Tenors never have to waste time looking through the self improvement section of the bookstore.
  7. You get to sing along with John Denver singing “High Calypso”.
  8. When you get really good at falsetto, you can make tons of money doing voice-overs for cartoon characters.
  9. Gregorian Chant was practically invented for Tenors; nobody ever invented a genre for Basses.
  10. You can entertain your friends by imitating Julia Child.
Top Ten Reasons to Be a Bass
  1. You don’t have to tighten your shorts to reach your note.
  2. You don’t have to worry about a woman stealing your job.
  3. Or a preadolescent boy.
  4. Action heroes are always Basses. That is - if they ever sang, they would sing Bass.
  5. You get great memorable lyrics like “bop, bop, bop, bop, bop”.
  6. If the singing job doesn’t work out, there’s always broadcasting.
  7. You never need to learn to read the treble clef.
  8. If you get a cold, so what?!!
  9. For fun, you can sing at the bottom of your range and fool people into thinking there’s an earthquake.
  10. If you belch while you’re singing, the audience will just think it’s part of the score.
Click to expand...
Where did you get these lists? I know a few singers who would appreciate this.
 
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