# Plain worship music?



## chuckd (Feb 29, 2012)

Does anybody have a resource for plain worship music? By plain, I mean perhaps one guy, or a band, acoustic guitar preferred, singing the hymn. No bells or whistles, no string quartet or orchestra. Just a straight forward song.

I teach an ESL Bible study and we learn a new song each week. I spend close to 30 min to an hour trying to find a decent (in my mind) rendition of classic hymns. Most of them on Itunes are, no offense anybody, junk. It's like listening to the national anthem being butchered at the World Series or Super Bowl...the singer trying to "stand out" by putting their own twist on the song. Just sing it for crying out loud.

edit: I found _Come Thou Fount_ by Jason Lavik nice. Anything along those lines.


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## Rich Koster (Feb 29, 2012)

This site has the words and tune to learn the hymns in the Trinity Hymnal.
Trinity Hymnal


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## Kim G (Feb 29, 2012)

chuckd said:


> I found _Come Thou Fount_ by Jason Lavik nice. Anything along those lines.



Funny, this guy's website is for Jadon (not Jason) Lavik. If you look up Jadon Lavik on YouTube, he has more hymns on there, like Take My Life and I Surrender All.

Are you looking only for classic hymns? Because there are some beautiful well-known worship songs on these two CDs. They are technically lullaby music, but it just means they are simple and clear. Amazon.com: Sing Over Me: Worship Songs And Lullabies: Various Artists: MP3 Downloads
Amazon.com: Sleepytime Lullabies: The Praise Baby Collection: MP3 Downloads

---------- Post added at 09:55 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:52 AM ----------

Oh, have you looked at Fernando Ortega? He has a lot of simple hymn music.


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## he beholds (Feb 29, 2012)

Joshua said:


> No bells or whistles here, just glorious, "plain," and authorized Psalm-singing:
> 
> Christ Covenant Reformed Presbyterian Church: Psalm Singing



I don't know what versions of Psalms your church sings, but I've rarely sang a Psalm that I'd recommend to an ESL learner! The only ones I could even maybe recommend have certainly been turned into hymns with singable tunes. My biggest resistance to singing Psalms (I love reading and praying them!) is their unsingableness and the inverted sentences (which does happen with hymns, but the tunes help there).




chuckd said:


> By plain, I mean perhaps one guy, or a band, acoustic guitar preferred, singing the hymn. No bells or whistles, no string quartet or orchestra. Just a straight forward song.



Have you heard Indelible Grace Music [video=youtube;KS3o_160OhE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KS3o_160OhE[/video] I've sung their songs with just an acoustic guitar and love it.


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## jwithnell (Feb 29, 2012)

The Trinity hymnal site already mentioned would be the most reliably reformed. Cyberhymnal often pops up when I'm searching for hymns, some with midi files. My guess here is that hymns with an Appalachian connection or "feel" (like, _How Firm a Foundation_ or _Brothers We Have Come to Worship_, would be the easiest to learn both from a music and a language persepctive.



> My biggest resistance to singing Psalms (I love reading and praying them!) is their unsingableness and the inverted sentences (which does happen with hymns, but the tunes help there).



This was one of the motivations John Newton had for writing hymns for the church.


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## Tim (Feb 29, 2012)

The Psalms are no more unsingable than the Bible is unreadable.


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## he beholds (Feb 29, 2012)

Tim said:


> The Psalms are no more unsingable than the Bible is unreadable.



Can you say why you think that's true? I disagree. I'm a pretty good reader and I've sung some Psalms where I've wondered what we were even talking about. But I could read that same Psalm and it would make perfect sense. 
So maybe you sing Psalms as they are written in the Bible--not turned into a hard to understand song? Well, if that's the case, then yes, I might understand it, but it's still not singable, like a song should be. You can't just sing poems and consider them proper songs. 
I would think, though I am not musical at all so I'm speaking as someone who is not as intelligent music-wise as I am words-wise, if a song was written in another language to become a song for a new language, it has to have music in mind when being translated, so it's again a song and not a poem. 

I am not saying that the Psalms can't be, and haven't been, beautiful, awe-inspiring, awe-reflecting, songs. I just rarely encounter one like that that is easy to understand. And the ones I have usually have what seems like a lot of poetic license to make them into songs for English-speakers. 

But if your point were true, that singing Psalms is only as difficult as reading the Bible is, then for an ESL class you'd probably agree that teaching the Bible is a pretty hard task and if you were looking for musical helps to teach Biblical truths, you might want to use something more accessible, like hymns? (Remember, this is not a worship service.)


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## Joseph Scibbe (Feb 29, 2012)

Here you go. Very good stuff. my hymnbook


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## Kim G (Feb 29, 2012)

Tim said:


> The Psalms are no more unsingable than the Bible is unreadable.



These excerpts from the Psalter show why they are not good for ESL students. The syntax is awkward: 
"He makes me down to lie in pastures green."
"He leadeth me the quiet waters by."
"My soul He doth restore again, and me to walk doth make within the paths of righteousness e'en for His own Name's sake." (Say what??)
"For Thou art with me, and Thy rod and staff me comfort still."

At least the KJV keeps the subject, verbs, adjectives, and objects in the correct order.

I do love my copy of The Book of Psalms for Worship, however, because a lot of the wording has been updated and rearranged to make the meaning clearer.


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