Singing Hymns in Family Worship

Hello,

For the past couple of years we have been using the Getty's music in family worship. I would like to use a traditional hymnal and Psalter, but I do not know how to read music. Are there any helps out there for the musically illiterate (instrumental accompaniment track or something similar)?

Not sure which Psalter you use, but there are good apps for some Psalters that make it easy to sing along:

1650 Psalter: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.charisdevelopment.thesixteenfifty&hl=en_US
Book of Psalms for Worship: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ActFiveSoftware.android.PsalmsForWorship&hl=en_US

Both are available for iOS as well.

The Trinity Hymnal (rev. ed.) has music and words available on-line at opc.org https://opc.org/hymnal.html

This website is a lifesaver for those who can't read music: https://hymnary.org/

You can find audio files and information on tons of hymnals. Here are my top picks:

1) For a straight Hymnal: the Trinity Hymnal - https://hymnary.org/hymnal/TH1990

2) For a straight Psalter: the Book of Psalms for Worship - https://hymnary.org/hymnal/BPfW2010

3) For a combined Psalter-Hymnal: the Trinity Psalter-Hymnal - https://hymnary.org/hymnal/TPH2018

My wife and I use The Book of Psalms for Worship. Psalter.org is helpful for working out the tunes. I commend both to you.

Thank you all for your helpful input! I figured there were several resources out there, but I was having some difficulty finding them.

Jake said:

1650 Psalter: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.charisdevelopment.thesixteenfifty&hl=en_US

Click to expand...

I second this recommendation. It is really excellent.

Here is a good resource for the Trinity Hymnal, including MIDI recordings for reference. I can honestly tell you as a music teacher, that learning as an adult is kind of like learning a new language as an adult-- it's more difficult than it would have been as a younger child, not to mention children generally have more time to learn such skills. However, if you are already familiar with the tune, simply using the score to know when notes go higher and lower can help a lot.

You may also want to learn note values, since this is not as difficult an endeavor. You can purchase excellent note rhythm resources to help you "feel" how various rhythms in differing meters work on a practical level.

Also, being able to "decode" a musical score could also be helpful so that you can figure out the melody on a piano, for example. There is a helpful free app called Music Tutor that will help you with note identification. Another method for learning is to identify all the Cs and Gs in the treble (G) clef and all the Cs and Fs in the bass (F) clef since the sequence of these notes mirror the other clef. After learning these, it's much easier to "fill in" the lines and spaces between.

Have fun!

To sing out of the Scottish Psalter, you can use any common metre tune for any the psalms. Some psalms have additional versions in other metres.

Check out the channel of Andrew Remillard on YouTube. Remillard is a pianist who posts instrumental recordings of hymns with the text; many of these tunes can be used with psalms. A few years ago I made a playlist of about 200 of these tunes. Remillard posts quite a lot of hymn tunes, so there are plenty you will find suitable for use with the Sing Psalms psalter (the text of which is available at no cost online).

There is also a fellow by the name of John-Ross Murray on Soundcloud. Lots of good tunes on guitar as well as some with vocals. It's been very helpful for me to learn some lovely tunes that might be difficult to find elsewhere.

Sing Psalms also has an app (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.freechurch.app). Their copyright allows you you to quote without payment up to 6 psalms https://freechurch.org/resources/praise/sing-psalms. So, I have been creating sheet music for family worship (though probably most would not do so).