Psalter singing
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Moved to the Worship forum.
Andres
Puritan Board Doctor
Sermon Audio just came out with a very helpful resource for singing the Psalms - https://beta.sermonaudio.com/psalter/
This has the tunes to help one learn them, but you can sing pretty much all the Psalms with any common meter tune,. Almost every Christian at least knows the tune to Amazing Grace, which is common meter, so if nothing else you can begin singing with that tune.
Purchase a few Psalters for you and your family here or here and start singing a Psalm each evening in family worship. You can either sing through the Psalter sequentially or you can focus on learning/memorizing a few select Psalms.
This has the tunes to help one learn them, but you can sing pretty much all the Psalms with any common meter tune,. Almost every Christian at least knows the tune to Amazing Grace, which is common meter, so if nothing else you can begin singing with that tune.
Purchase a few Psalters for you and your family here or here and start singing a Psalm each evening in family worship. You can either sing through the Psalter sequentially or you can focus on learning/memorizing a few select Psalms.
Northern Crofter
Puritan Board Sophomore
I found it very helpful to use a devotional aid like Daily Readings from Calvin on the Psalms or Spurgeon's The Treasury of David to guide me through the Psalms and I sang them as I went through them - you end up studying and singing all of the Psalms which was very rewarding. If you have a family, this is a very useful approach for family worship.
Northern Crofter
Puritan Board Sophomore
I also like the Genevan Psalter (available in many languages) - the English site has lyrics and music. Is still prefer the 1650 Sottish metrical psalter for many reasons (largely because it was my first exposure to psalmody and I have memorized so many Psalms by using it), but I like to use different psalters to see the different translations and settings.
Andres
Puritan Board Doctor
If you want a Psalter that includes meditations/devotions on the Psalms, Grange Press has put together a really beautiful Psalter. A bit more expensive than the Psalters I linked previously but this one is worth the extra cost both for the extra content and the lovely design.
Northern Crofter
Puritan Board Sophomore
If you use the 1650 Psalter app (free on Apple/Google Play) it also has a link to Brown's notes.
Santos
Puritan Board Freshman
My wife just bought me a little black psalter/hymnal, I believe it is the old Trinity Psalter/Hymnal. I love it.
Our church does not sing good songs typically or any of the Psalms for that matter. So, we typically refrain from singing at church.
I have been planning on using the Psalter for family worship. It was a wonderful little gift. My wife knows me so well. Come to think of it she is a wonderful little gift as well.
Our church does not sing good songs typically or any of the Psalms for that matter. So, we typically refrain from singing at church.
I have been planning on using the Psalter for family worship. It was a wonderful little gift. My wife knows me so well. Come to think of it she is a wonderful little gift as well.
In English, I use some if the above resources / similar ones and sing either the Scottish Psalter, the Genevan, or sometimes others (psalm 85 from "sing psalms" on the tune "Ebenezer" works great. I figured that out through a youtube that I will look up after posting).
In Hebrew, there is no metrical psalter, and I doubt that there should be one. Some psalms have enough of a similarity to one of the songs I grew up with in messianic Judaism to be singable to those tunes, but it get's akward with all but one or two. I have a bible that divides the halfs of the verses quite neatly, and have learned two or three plainchant tones. From there I go on and develop my own tones - altough I do want to get to the point where I can use Anglican Chant. So I sing that - a very primitive singing, but better then mere recitation.
In Hebrew, there is no metrical psalter, and I doubt that there should be one. Some psalms have enough of a similarity to one of the songs I grew up with in messianic Judaism to be singable to those tunes, but it get's akward with all but one or two. I have a bible that divides the halfs of the verses quite neatly, and have learned two or three plainchant tones. From there I go on and develop my own tones - altough I do want to get to the point where I can use Anglican Chant. So I sing that - a very primitive singing, but better then mere recitation.
Full words including first verse:
Psalm 85 [8.7.8.7.D]
PSALM 85 [8 7 8 7 D] Sing Psalms Recommended Tunes: Austrian Hymn 1 In times past, LORD, you showed favour to your own beloved land; The prosperity of Jacob you restored by your strong hand. 2 You …
crossfreechurch.org
I don't know if you saw this recent thread, but there are some good resources and some good advice in it. https://www.puritanboard.com/threads/how-to-sing-the-psalms.112549/
SavedSinner
Puritan Board Freshman
This link has the music for the Genevan. All these used for every European language. No need to be limited to 17th century Scotland. Even music majors at Dort will tell you the tunes are "too hard to learn", but that is not true, if you just play it a few times or read the music, you can learn it.
Click on any of the 150 and you will find
Audio
Sheet Music
Engl. Lyrics---modern CanRef or other modern Engl.
Music & Lyrics - The Genevan Psalter
A center for resources and information relating to the Genevan Psalter, including articles, sheet music, recordings, books, websites and metrical translations based on it.
genevanpsalter.com
Click on any of the 150 and you will find
Audio
Sheet Music
Engl. Lyrics---modern CanRef or other modern Engl.
SavedSinner
Puritan Board Freshman
Click and listen to beautiful Psalm 25 - A TOY, MON DIEU [GENEVAN 25]:
darrellmaurina
Puritan Board Freshman
A quick word of encouragement on this.
We bought a recently closed church building near Fort Leonard Wood in the Missouri Ozarks, have begun a Wednesday night Heidelberg Catechism class, and have purchased enough copies of the Genevan Psalter to put in the pews (the building seats about 70 to 80 people so we bought 30 copies, which is plenty).
Nobody in the group except me has ever sung the Genevan tunes. I am far from a good singer, but with the aid of that website, have had zero problem teaching them. If Ozark hillbillies can put up with an Italian like me singing French-written tunes that are most commonly sung by Dutch people, perhaps it's proof that the Psalter is not ethnic. There are modern Genevan Psalter translations available in Spanish, Chinese, Japanese and Korean, and I'm trying to get Korean copies since my mother-in-law speaks no English and we're probably eventually going to have some Korean wives of American soldiers at Fort Leonard Wood.
The tunes just are not that difficult, except for people who think Christian Contemporary Music is the way all church music should be, and most of those people won't like any version of the psalter since they want entertainment in worship, not conviction of sin.
For people who prefer to sing psalms to tunes that (mostly) are from modern hymns, try the new OPC/URCNA Trinity Psalter Hymnal or the RPCNA Psalter.
Psalm singing is good and we need to do more of it. God gave us the psalms and if we aren't singing them we need to ask ourselves why not.
darrellmaurina
Puritan Board Freshman
@yeutter wrote: "The old 1912 United Presbyterian Psalter is still in use in the Netherland Reformed Congregations, The Protestant Reformed Churches and probably some other Dutch Reformed bodies. I have wondered why these Churches do not adopt a psalter that is similar to the Genevan Psalter; like the Canadian Reformed Churches have done."
Great question. Your post was on a different thread that is now closed for replies so I can't post this there.
The short answer is that there was no version of the Genevan Psalter in English when the CRC adopted the 1912 UPNA Psalter for its English-speaking churches, and then used it as the backbone of the 1934 (Red) Psalter Hymnal and the 1959 (Blue) Psalter Hymnal.
I am aware of four Dutch Reformed denominations that still use the 1912 UPNA Psalter: the PRC, NRC, FRC, and HRC.
The Protestant Reformed split in 1924 kept the version of the psalter in use in the CRC at that time. The earliest English-speaking Netherlands Reformed Congregation was in South Holland, Ill., and was a breakoff from First CRC of South Holland, I think in 1905, that later worked with other Dutch-speaking congregations from a Gereformeerde Gemeenten background in places like Grand Rapids, New Jersey and Iowa to start the Netherlands Reformed Congregations. However, the majority of the Netherlands Reformed Congregations were begun in Canada by post-WW2 Dutch immigrants who chose to use the 1912 Psalter since there was no English translation of the Genevan Psalter available. The earliest Free Reformed Church was in Grand Rapids, originally known as the Old Christian Reformed Church of Grand Rapids; I believe it started in the 1940s and had the same issue. The Heritage Reformed Congregations (Dr. Joel Beeke) followed the NRC practice when they left the NRC in the 1990s.
Except for the Christian Reformed Church, all of these denominations are quite small today and were even smaller when they started. All are under 10,000 members and many are quite a bit smaller than that. It may have been unrealistic to ask any of them to undertake the massive project of an English translation of the Genevan Psalter.
To their credit, the Canadian Reformed Churches, which today have about 20,000 members, undertook the VERY difficult work of producing an English edition of the Genevan Psalter after emigrating to Canada following World War II. That was a truly massive undertaking for a small federation of churches.
It would have been nice if the CRC had done so back in the early 1900s as its churches were making the transition to using English, but they didn't, and the Canadian Reformed deserve a lot of credit for their hard work on this as a small federation of (at that time) mostly new immigrants. If you aren't seeing this, @Guido's Brother , I wanted to make sure you see my compliments to your federation for doing what someone should have done back in the 1600s, i.e., translating the Genevan Psalter into English.
Great question. Your post was on a different thread that is now closed for replies so I can't post this there.
The short answer is that there was no version of the Genevan Psalter in English when the CRC adopted the 1912 UPNA Psalter for its English-speaking churches, and then used it as the backbone of the 1934 (Red) Psalter Hymnal and the 1959 (Blue) Psalter Hymnal.
I am aware of four Dutch Reformed denominations that still use the 1912 UPNA Psalter: the PRC, NRC, FRC, and HRC.
The Protestant Reformed split in 1924 kept the version of the psalter in use in the CRC at that time. The earliest English-speaking Netherlands Reformed Congregation was in South Holland, Ill., and was a breakoff from First CRC of South Holland, I think in 1905, that later worked with other Dutch-speaking congregations from a Gereformeerde Gemeenten background in places like Grand Rapids, New Jersey and Iowa to start the Netherlands Reformed Congregations. However, the majority of the Netherlands Reformed Congregations were begun in Canada by post-WW2 Dutch immigrants who chose to use the 1912 Psalter since there was no English translation of the Genevan Psalter available. The earliest Free Reformed Church was in Grand Rapids, originally known as the Old Christian Reformed Church of Grand Rapids; I believe it started in the 1940s and had the same issue. The Heritage Reformed Congregations (Dr. Joel Beeke) followed the NRC practice when they left the NRC in the 1990s.
Except for the Christian Reformed Church, all of these denominations are quite small today and were even smaller when they started. All are under 10,000 members and many are quite a bit smaller than that. It may have been unrealistic to ask any of them to undertake the massive project of an English translation of the Genevan Psalter.
To their credit, the Canadian Reformed Churches, which today have about 20,000 members, undertook the VERY difficult work of producing an English edition of the Genevan Psalter after emigrating to Canada following World War II. That was a truly massive undertaking for a small federation of churches.
It would have been nice if the CRC had done so back in the early 1900s as its churches were making the transition to using English, but they didn't, and the Canadian Reformed deserve a lot of credit for their hard work on this as a small federation of (at that time) mostly new immigrants. If you aren't seeing this, @Guido's Brother , I wanted to make sure you see my compliments to your federation for doing what someone should have done back in the 1600s, i.e., translating the Genevan Psalter into English.
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The meters of the Genevan tunes may not be in a 1-to-1 correspondance to the original, but they are close enough to work in Hebrew. I very recently figured out how to sing Psalms 1, 2 and 110 to the Genevan tunes in my native tounge, which is incidentally also the language the sweet psalmist himself wrote them in. In common meter tunes it would have never worked.
O that my countrymen may one day sing of the priest after Malchizedek's order to a grave sweet melody, with understanding, upon the Christian Sabbath!
Edit: I must have tried that after writing my previous reply on here, so no inconsistensy here
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therussellhome
Puritan Board Freshman
Being a family that prefers digital resources, we use the Trinity Psalter app https://www.trinitypsalterhymnal.org/where-to-buy/
If you prefer to sing with someone, an artist on YouTube recorded many of them https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLj4t3TQnIodZhdjHEopFu7Q7mfXhNg4Tc&si=m16RDUCv_GnFmaD-
If you prefer to sing with someone, an artist on YouTube recorded many of them https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLj4t3TQnIodZhdjHEopFu7Q7mfXhNg4Tc&si=m16RDUCv_GnFmaD-
SavedSinner
Puritan Board Freshman
The "Trinity Psa/Hymnal" tales us back again to that old United Presbyterian 1912 Psalter with 19th century tunes that the Dutch in N. America adopted ---one that many serious psalm-singers would hardly consider to be a psalter (although some selections are very good). The Scottish, Geneva, RPCNA psalters are certainly the real thing: teachers will refer to the Psalter text as the word of God, very different from the 1912 selections.
Covenant Protestant Reformed Church Ballymena Ulster Psalm singing resources.
cprcpsalms.wordpress.com
About & Contact
This small website provides practical resoures for the psalm singing of the Covenant Protestant Reformed Church of Ballymena, Northern Ireland. For more information on the theology behind singing t…
cprcpsalms.wordpress.com
The Church of England Sternhold and Hopkins Psalter
The Church of England Brady and Tate A New Version of the Psalms of David in Metre
Northern Crofter
Puritan Board Sophomore
I'm not sure the 3 pslaters you listed are equally good translations. The current RPCNA at times seems like an NIV (New Inferior Version) psalter. But I agree it is better than the 1912 or anything by Isaac Watts and his Psalms of David Imitated.
The Genevan Psalter
Music & Lyrics - The Genevan Psalter
A center for resources and information relating to the Genevan Psalter, including articles, sheet music, recordings, books, websites and metrical translations based on it.
genevanpsalter.com
Plain song chant psalter
Grant Van Leuven
Puritan Board Freshman
I always so appreciate seeing how many Psalm singers are part of PB. And I found something I was looking for for a sermon on Psalm singing I preached for yesterday's Lord's Day evening sermon (how many times the Psalms are quoted in the NT, which is so amazing. I forgot about the RPCNA's appendix at the back of their Book of Psalms for Singing and it was SO helpful to be reminded of in this forum and consult!). Though not directly answering the question of this thread, I thought I'd share this sermon I mentioned above, "The Psalms Sing of Jesus," based on Acts 13, especially vs. 35a, "another Psalm," regarding its context of many Psalms being quoted as part of a sermon proving Jesus is the Resurrected Savior from whom we can have forgiveness of sins: https://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=12924326506954.
J.C. Philpot
Puritan Board Freshman
In the Netherlands the Reformed Churches where experimental salvation is stressed, the psalter/versification of 1773 is still widely used. In our tradition we do not know acapella singing, such as in use in Presbyterian churches from the Scottisch tradition. In church we sing with organ - no other instruments are being used in the official services.
Below you can find a video of Psalm 42, sung by 1700 men.
Psalm 130:
Psalm 68:
Psalm 150:
Below you can find a video of Psalm 42, sung by 1700 men.
Psalm 130:
Psalm 68:
Psalm 150:
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