"History of Christian Music and Hymns" Video Transcript

Video Transcript: History of Christian Music and Hymns

Steve Elzinga 

All right, so we're going to be looking at worship music streams, playing different kinds of music. There's contemporary, there's hymns, there's scripture songs, there's gospel, there's all these different things. And as the music director, you know, you have to check what your church is, you know, maybe you're a hymn only church or who knows what kind of songs you do. But we're going to just introduce you to a lot of different streams and then you'll have more options to pick from them. We're going to look a little bit at the history of music here and but more specifically, hymns. King David's tap, 150. We have them in the Bible. 

There's 150 psalms Psalm 117, is an example of:

Praise the Lord all you nations 

Extol him all you peoples

For greatest is love toward us 

And the faithfulness of the Lord 

Endures forever

Praise The Lord 

Now the only problem is we don't have the music. So we have all the words of these songs. But we don't have the music. We have no idea what the music was like. It probably wasn't anything like the music we have today. No keyboards probably didn't even have the scale that we have. There were stringed instruments. So they must have had some notes. 

Steve Elzinga 

But we have no idea how they put them together. What we know was a little bit later in history, 

Gregorian chant, a 

style of music that was named after Pope Gregory, some 1500 years ago, 

used in the mass, 

mostly slung sung by the clergy or the Boys Choir. 

was in Latin. 

Probably Gregorian chant goes like this. I go backwards here. If you look at some Praise the Lord here are your nations. A Gregorian chant would have little marks and those little marks would say what to do like at the end of a line so it might be "praise the Lord all you nation extol him all up people". so it might go down every time or it might go "praise the Lord Oh you nation" might go up just before it goes down. "Praise the extol him you people for great is His love toward us". And they have like various options, various signs at the end of the phrase that either go up or down or go up and down two times, or they had you know, it could get kind of complicated, but it didn't matter how long the phrase was, because you're setting one note at the beginning and then you did all the moving at the end. But you can see as it got more complicated. "Da da da da da da da", you know, the more complicated it got, the more it starts sounding like like the songs that we sing. So you can see how a Gregorian chant probably evolved into into more music than the kind that we know it.

Steve Elzinga 

Moving on. The hymns 

became popular in the Reformation some 500 years ago 

since the Bible was being translated into the language of the local people, (instead of using latin) would use German or French or Latin. 

Marie Elzinga 

Do you want to talk about oh yeah, the Latin Yeah, I guess the Latin motet. 

Steve Elzinga 

That was Gregorian chant and then if he got became more melodic, I suppose. Do you know any Latin looked at? Remember we think back in college we saying that 

Marie Elzinga 

Yeah, but you remember that and I don't.

Steve Elzinga 

And I don't know if this is the melody or if it's the tenor part, but it's it goes. "he is singing here but the words are stretched out" some, just keep saying those same words and it's it's something about our miseries or something a lot of times or just be a few words and then you go up and down and it's really quite beautiful. We did this jubi la te de o, "jubi la te de o, jubi la te de o hallelujah". So that's, that's kind of a Latin motif and then it becomes parts. what we may think we were To talk about is the hymns. As I said, they 

became popular and in the reformation, that's 500 years ago, 

and the Bible was being translated into the common people's language. And so they started taking local tunes, folk songs that people would use to sing about their lives and, and they started putting more biblical kinds of phraseology to it and, and people's faith, their response to the faith. And that's the the hymns were born 500 years ago, and they're still popular today. 

I here's a few of the biggies. Amazing Grace, written by John Newton (1725-1807). 

Steve Elzinga 

He was a ex slave trader, he had chips and he would take the people, incarcerate them in Africa and bring them to the new world and then he got converted. And so you know, I, you know, one of the phrases is in the song is that saved a wretch like me. And that's how he felt he felt like he was the bottom of the bottom. And so he wrote a song in a way of his own experience. And we've been singing it ever since. 

A mighty fortress is our God, Martin Luther (1483-1546), as, in a way started the Reformation. And that song is still sung 

Joy to the world. Christmas song by Isaac Watts (1674-1748), written hundreds of years ago. 

Christ the Lord has risen today, song probably at Easter and many churches around the world was written by Charles Wesley (1797-1748) 

And just a note, Charles Wesley wrote almost 9000 gifts in is life that's a lot. Okay. 

Steve Elzinga 

There's still popular today because they are simple songs of faith, hope and love that related to the common people. These people would write their own experiences like John Newton wrote of his own personal conversion. The song is well with my soul was written by someone I think he lost his daughter on the voyage over over to the new world. And then he wrote this song that it was still well with his soul, even though you know, all these horrible things happen. God is still close. So they, they're, they're very personal and I think they speak to people's lives and they're easy to sing. They were easy to sing. They tend to be mostly on the downbeat so they're easy to sing. You don't need it. guitar. You don't need a drum. You could just sing them. They're easy to memorize. Try to think of some hymns. Give me a hymn. "By with me, fast falls the event tie the darkness deepens". or give me another. "This is my Father's world and to my listening in, oh nature",

Marie Elzinga 

Let's thinking patient and saw quarter notes, half notes maybe 8.

Steve Elzinga 

Yeah, it's all tends to be quartered, quarter notes. Most of the big words are important words are right on the beat. "Amazing grace how sweat the sound", and because the words are right on the downbeat, that's it's just a lot easier to sing. Whereas new new songs are on the upbeat. And we'll talk about that in the contemporary section. But hymns are very simple, easy to sing. You can use a piano you can use an organ but you can just sing them acapella and they work fine. Or they had a simple structure. Some of them are just verses Amazing Grace.

Steve Elzinga 

You're still near, "You're still near Lord to be then" there is like four or five verses and there's no chorus. So it's just one verse, second verse, third verse. Amazing Grace is just four or five verses. Some of them have choruses, it as well with my soul. You have you have verse and then and then it's "It is well it is well with my soul". it's a very simple little chorus. But but the songs are very simple and and so people had no trouble singing them. And they had they had great harmonies. We we have this, if you look in the supplemental material here of our of our program, or this class, we're putting all these songs, we're just so you can download them or just listen to them online, whatever you want to do. But this is a CD that has 12 hymns, and it has the parts so that you can learn the parts, but just just, you know, as I was listening for this class, I listened to some of these songs and I thought, you know, they're really nice and especially the harmony.

Steve Elzinga 

"choir singing" Okay, now I just want you here another one. "choir singing" I want you to notice those words you know when other helpers fail, you know the darkness closes in. It's off stuff that people feel. And it's like pleading and praying to God, abide with me during those times and it's just it's just a call to help. Tomorrow I'm doing a funeral service and maybe we'll be singing this song, but people will. They're going through a tough time and a song like this actually gives you the words to say you wouldn't know how to say these things yourself but the hymn says them for you. Let me play just the I think it's the last one here and it's a beautiful beautiful older him and number 47 for the harmonies are, you know about the harmony Lo How a Rose E'er Blooming "choir singing". This hymn is actually a little bit syncopated, it's that's why it's a little harder to do. It's got some moving parts, and it's what makes it more fun. But the hymns typically didn't do that. 

Steve Elzinga 

Although in some places they did. In France they had I forget what the kind of song singer was called. But but the notes they were a little bit more syncopated, they weren't always on the beat. And then our heritage is a Dutch heritage and they took Those French songs and they just translated them into Dutch and and the the notes and the music didn't always fit the words because the words were different and but they just left it that way for 100 years. And finally after 100 years it was like you know these these words don't really fit the music. So how are we going to take French words and the music that fit that and turn it into Dutch? So what they came up with is they just made every note the same quarter notes Oh, yeah, quarter notes or half notes. So I'm trying to think of what song was like that as yeah "as the heart" so the original French tune with "as the heart about to falter in its pain and agony". It was very syncopated but The Dutch people translated it was just "as the heart about to falter in its pain and agony", they just made it. 

Steve Elzinga 

And you know, it sounds kind of silly right now. But that became a hallmark of Dutch singing because the doxology is "praise God from whom all blessings flow". I mean, they really punched it out and it became symbolic of strong You know, like marching almost Dutch singing, but it was because of this, this problem of translation. So some of the hymns originally were more complicated but over the years, we sort of simplify and and and they became very easy to sing. So that's, you know, in a way that's a positive about the, the hymns because they are easy to sing. You don't need a band. You don't need drums, you don't need guitars, you can Sitting around the fire and just sing hymns, you can be sitting in the hospital room and someone can just start singing a hymn and people can join in. Because the words are simple. A lot of times people at least know the first verse of a song. But they're losing out to contemporary Christian music a little bit, you know, at least in some areas, at least here in the United States, maybe in Europe as well or in other places of the world. And there's some reasons why First, the organ that you play the organ and you studied the organ , how many? How many people were playing the organ back when you were? 

Marie Elzinga 

Not very many? 

Steve Elzinga 

No. 

Marie Elzinga 

Well, there were the generation. The people that were older when I was learning, there was a huge amount of them. But my contemporaries even there weren't very many, say my age who are learning at the same time that I was.

Steve Elzinga 

 And what about now?

Marie Elzinga 

And now there are very few, 

Steve Elzinga 

right? So yeah, organ is a really complicated instrument, you know, you have a keyboard or maybe two keyboards, and then you have your, your feet right, or playing the bass thing and there's all these stops and different sounds and, and so a really good organist could play the four verses of a hymn. Start off with a few soft stops. second verse, make it totally different. third verse, bring in some bass, fourth verse, bring in the, you know, every pipe in the house, and it was like, you know, the thing could build but now people that you know, they're, you know, they don't know organ very well or anything. It's like, you know, every verse just played the same foot, you know, it's one volume one thing and here we go. So I think the hymns are waning a bit because they were dependent on the organ or became dependent on the organ and the organ is sort of

Marie Elzinga 

right It's an expensive instrument so like our churches, a church plant, in a sense, it's in a warehouse type building. We can't afford buy one.

Steve Elzinga 

$100,000 organ. So when you can buy a keyboard for a couple thousand dollars, it has organs, right? 

Marie Elzinga 

And it's not very portable. So you know what with you.

Steve Elzinga 

Right? The hymns are syncopated enough for today's audience, people like people like that off beat. They like singing in the off. It's not easy to do. But, 

Marie Elzinga 

right but the popular music that you're listening to on the radio, let's say whatever's out in culture right now, is much more syncopated.

Steve Elzinga 

Yeah, it's the Woodward syncopated, you know, we've used that word a few times, but it's 

Marie Elzinga 

off the beat off the main beat, so it sees it a little bit ahead of the beat, the main,

Steve Elzinga 

right so the main, the main beat would be if you're listening to a song and you just naturally tap your foot down. When your foot is hitting the ground, it's, it's the down. So whether with the drum, if you have a drum kit, that the downbeat is when the when the guys hitting the hit the bass and then the next beat he hits with the snare, and that's the offbeat so it's "making drum beat with his voice"

Steve Elzinga 

just you don't even need a drum and it just but Okay, so, so people want that on the off beat and the hymns are sort of on the downbeat. So some of them are so the hymns are waining a bit. There's old word structure and archaic words younger people don't know what the mean what it understands. I had an example here from Rock Rock of Ages it Rock of Ages I think it's the third verse goes "not the labor of my not the labor of my hands can fulfill the law the laws domain" so "you know the works that I do cannot fulfill the law I can't get right with God by what I do". But then it says could my zeal no langer no could my tears forever flow Langer What does that mean?

Marie Elzinga 

Exactly? 

Steve Elzinga 

Do you know what it means? 

Marie Elzinga 

My zeal no light like or no so laziness?

Steve Elzinga 

Yeah. She knows because her dad had a dictionary this big and he made everyone look up a word and he loved words and so on but the average person is going to go, Langer at one of the lines is foul line to the fountain Fly, foul means the dirty with sin and so on. So, so there's a lot of words in these these hymns people don't know or the wording is not how we talk today.

Marie Elzinga 

Well in your earlier example as the heart.

Steve Elzinga 

Yeah. Is the heart about to falter. The heart is another word for dear, dear. So just old words archaic ways of saying things and, you know, people, you know, took the time to hear the words, I think they would speak to them, but a lot of times maybe the form of the music keeps you from even paying attention to the words. verse after verse, the same again with the organ problem, you know, you just sing the first verse, you sing the second verse, sing the third verse, And nothing builds, nothing grows, there's no cars, there's no quota. There's no bridge, you know, all these things that happen in contemporary Music and finally, the beat. It's not there's no beat. It's just, it's not a it's not a beat driven kind of thing, especially, you know, the organ's that being played the way they could be played. 

Steve Elzinga 

I mean, if you get a really good organist who can really pound on it, and you know, there's some kind of a beat and that the Dutch people when they sang their songs, "praise God from" I mean, they would really, you know, belted out and emphasize it, but it's it's not like "making drum beat with his voice" you know, there's there's a you know, the beat today is pretty prominent in the in the bass and so on and the hymns really are not driven by that. But hymns can be updated. You know, you can 

- explain the words you know, what is Langer mean? And then people actually learn a new word, and it's kind of cool. You can 

- explain the history of the hymns. You know the stories behind the hymns, you can just google the hymn and the whole background of who wrote it and why they wrote it. And some of the stories are just, they're really cool. 

- You can use a full band, you can instead of the organ you can use the piano, the guitars and now it takes something we're going to do a separate video with our band actually, to show you how that works. How do you play a hymn with your whole band? How do you add drums to a hymn? You can't just start banging on the drum in the middle of the hymn and have it sound right I you know, some churches try to do that and it just upsets everybody. It doesn't really doesn't really work. You can 

- add some syncopation. We'll demonstrate that too. Instead of just singing. I think we did that with Rock of Ages you know? are not Rock of Ages. Amazing Grace. You just play a little bit of play more contemporary style. (band singing" So when I did that sound, I did the on the offbeat instead of on the downbeat in the original, it's on the downbeat. So you you just sing it, like it like it was a contemporary song. He throw on a little bit of syncopation. And a lot of artists are starting to do that they're starting to sing the hymns more like contemporary people are singing the hymns more, but they're sort of like I guess I would call it jazzing them up contemporising them up right. Adding some syncopation. 

- Let the verses build, you know, we play it is well. When peace like a river, you start off when peace like a river, very soft and very quiet. But eventually it is well with my soul. You're just belting that out. And you build at the start with just a piano. You start with maybe just a guitar and then you add, maybe the bass comes in, and then the piano comes in, and then a few violins come in, and then eventually the drums and everything comes in at the end and like builds, and maybe you'll build it and then all of a sudden, the next verse, you can do acapella. And everything drops out. And now, you know, it's like, you could hear a pin drop and then maybe it comes back in again. And, you know, there's some variety the versus it's not just, you know, sing a verse, sing a verse, sing a verse, sing a verse, done. It's like the song, you know, looking at the words and where they're going and what the story is, and and then it drives home and it's, it speaks to all generations really. See 

- add drums. And finally, maybe you 

- update the tune some hymns people just aren't singing at all anymore. And yet, the words are really good. And we'll show some of that to where you know, we did some of those where you just change the tune entirely, you come up with a totally modern tune in the section on how to write your own music, your own songs, we talked about how, when you come up with a tune, a good place to look for words, is is the hymns and that way they can be updated. So that's one stream the hymns. 

Steve Elzinga 

Now, you know, I don't know what you know, you're perhaps in a different culture, you might be in the Philippines, you might be in Africa somewhere and whether this hymn or that hymn was there, you know, you had some of them, probably some of the hymns eventually got all around the world or you have your own local history, your own local hymns, and some of the old songs that the people used to say And they're not singing anymore and, you know, what can you do to sort of revive some of those because, you know, I think ultimately and have an organ me singing all the songs of all the ages. And so why not choose some of the songs in your song book for your church from from the older songs and just, you know, try to update some part of it so that it can still speak to people.