Part singing can be a temptation to slide into performance mode, for sure. The focus should be on the words, and if you're singing Psalms, you are engaging in worship. Calvin had the congregations sing in unison (thus the lovely and engaging Genevan melodies). But that doesn't seem to have been the way in the three kingdoms Reformation so I would say, just beware of making more of harmonies than the words and ideas you're singing.
Good point. It can be hard to tell where the line is crossed from reveling in the material to reveling in the performing of it.Part singing can be a temptation to slide into performance mode, for sure. The focus should be on the words, and if you're singing Psalms, you are engaging in worship. Calvin had the congregations sing in unison (thus the lovely and engaging Genevan melodies). But that doesn't seem to have been the way in the three kingdoms Reformation so I would say, just beware of making more of harmonies than the words and ideas you're singing.
I've heard that before as well. I have also experienced that singing in harmony produces a feeling of unity and successful partnering - such as when we land on a note and we're dead in tune with each other.
Singing, and especially singing together does something interesting to your brain, no question about that. I don't believe we're fully aware of all the effects of it. Neuroscience is only starting to gather some hints.
Neuroscience - just now starting to catch up with the ancient Greeks.
I grew up with a tone deaf and off-beat father who was VERY loud in his singing in church, and I may admit that singing in harmony with my siblings and mom may have been a way to bring the unity back together so we were actually singing the same hymn at the same time by the end! hahaHymn singing is definitely a way to learn about people close to you! My wife is a low alto and I'm awkwardly somewhere between a tenor and a bass. I've gotten better at giving appropriate starting pitches, and I'm pretty sure we're nowhere close to the actual written key of most of the hymns we sing.On a different note to think about...I think there can be a practical benefit of singing in parts...everyone can actually participate to their vocal ability. Sometimes having the one melody can be difficult for each person to contribute...This I have come to very much appreciate singing favorites by the congregation on Bible Song requests during our Psalm request nights in our ARP congregation---oh boy are those HIGH notes...(even some too, though not to as great of a degree, in the of Book of Psalms for Worship of which the ARP psalter has many selections from it) and it can be a struggle for many people to all stay together because reaching the notes just to stay on melody can be really difficult. I am not joking when I say that I trained myself to be a soprano after years of being an alto when I joined Psalm singing churches LOL (already had a musician background, but not vocalist...but used reading skills and then self-taught with private study)! But not everyone has that luxury of being as adaptable...and it honestly might not be as sustainable as I get older just knowing how my mom's voice is now. The beauty of harmonization when done in an appropriate manner is that it is meant not just to be people doing different things, but rather being attuned to one another so that our voices mix together as one, despite having different notes. I think that's a beautiful vision of complementing one another and uniting different people together in one body
Also, as an aside...if you're also tone deaf or really off the beat, it's a lot easier to blend in this way so you don't feel like you're messing up the "unity" when you're the one obvious outlier.
I have, and I think the visual effect is quite lovely, in addition to the benefits that it provided to the less-musically-educated.
This is just false. Harmony is simply "the musical result of tones sounding together" (Bruce Benward and Marilyn Saker, Music in Theory and Practice, 8th ed., 2 vols. [New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 2009], 73). C4 and C5 on the piano are different tones, although in the same pitch class. In fact, from a pitch/tone perspective, C4 and C5 are just as much different pitches as C and C#. It's just a fact. They may blend the most harmoniously to the human ear, but they are no less different pitches. Thus, singing them together is harmony no less.
I understand this, but I am speaking from a technical, music theory perspective. This is the study of how music actually works, not how it is colloquially understood. It is relevant to this discussion. If folks want to have a discussion about harmony, then they need to define their terms according to the music theory that has been developed and established for centuries at this point. If we don't define our terms, then conversation will never happen.
For purposes of psalm- and hymn-singing, the distinction is between whether we sing the same melodic line / pitch class or whether we sing parts. My question was not asked from a technical, music theory perspective, but from the perspective of average congregants / families singing. For the purposes of this question, unison and octave singing are functionally equivalent, as opposed to part singing. Your definition of harmony is so broad that it would also apply to different instruments playing in unison, such as a piano and a clarinet, which have different overtone series. That's fine, but I am not using the word "harmony" in that sense. I am using harmony to specifically mean the singing of multiple independent melodic lines / voices-parts. This is a valid and contextually appropriate use of the term "harmony", as well as of the term "unison".
I understand all this, brother. That's exactly why I said in my original post, "Of course, I know no one is arguing that here." My post was not made against anyone in this thread. Rather, it was simply a perspective of someone who has been classically trained when dealing with these particular musical questions and issues. That's all.
Yes. Again, I understand.
This. Most definitely this. I can't tell you how many men just kind of mumble along because they don't have the range to hit higher notes and then they flop back and forth between octaves and think they are bad at singing. But give them some notes that are meant for their range and they are singing joyfully and clearly.
Likewise, I do it all the time. I often sing a different part on the next verse. My wife does the same thing. We sometimes end up with a tenor/alto duet, which is pretty cool.
