Unison Singing

[hammondjones]

Reading Bonhoeffer's Life Together, I was intrigued by this part:

Because it is bound wholly to the Word, the singing of the congregation, especially of the family congregation, is essentially singing in unison. Here words and music combine in a unique way. The soaring tone of unison singing finds its sole and essential support in the words that are sung and therefore does not need the musical support of other voices.

With one voice let us sing today
In unison both praise and pray​

sang the Bohemian Brethren. "With one mind and one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Rom. 15:6). The purity of unison singing, unaffected by alien motives of musical techniques, the clarity, unspoiled by the attempt to give musical an an autonomy of its own apart from the words, the simplicity and frugality, the humaneness and warmth of this way of singing is the essence of all congregational singing. This, it is true, discloses itself to our cultivated ears only gradually and by patient practice. It becomes a question of a congregation's power of spiritual discernment whether it adopts proper unison singing. This is singing from the heart, singing to the Lord, singing the Word; this is singing in unity.

There are some destroyers of unison singing in the fellowship that must be rigorously eliminated. There is no place in the service of worship where vanity and bad taste can so intrude as in the singing. There is, first, the improvised second part which one hears almost everywhere. It attempts to give the necessary background, the missing fullness to the soaring unison tone, and thus kills both the words and the tone. There is the bass or the alto who must call everybody's attention to his astonishing range and therefore sings every hymn an octave lower. There is the solo voice that goes swaggering, swelling, blaring, and tremulant from a full chest and drowns out everything else to the glory of its own fine organ. There are the less dangerous foes of congregational singing, the "unmusical," who cannot sing, of whom there are far fewer than we are led to believe, and finally, there are often those also who because of some mood will not join in the singing and thus disturb the fellowship.

Unison singing, difficult as it is, is less of a musical than a spiritual matter.

Compare Trinity Psalter Hymnal:

7. If you are able, sing the alto, tenor, or bass part. This adds richness to the congregational singing.

While I don't disagree that vanity can intrude in singing (and especially instrument playing!), he is coming down pretty strong on most of the Western Church here. And I found it slightly ironic that he would say this, since the Lutheran tunes are, to my ear, the most harmonically complex ones in the entire hymnal. Was there a tradition of unison singing in the Lutheran church?

The Genevan tunes were designed to be sung in unison. The Scottish Psalter tunes were, I understand, selected so as to make them as singable as possible.

The only denominations/traditions that I know of which sing semi-unison are those which line out the songs, like Old Regular Baptists, and Gaelic Psalmody, and apparently some Amish or other Anabaptists sing in unison to root out individualism

I see it often asserted that Calvin favored unison singing; where did he argue for that?

 

[retroGRAD3]

Important to remember that Bonhoeffer was not orthodox in his beliefs.

The Troubling Truth About Bonhoeffer’s Theology - Christian Research Institute

This article first appeared in the CHRISTIAN RESEARCH JOURNAL, volume 35, number 06 (2012). The full text of this article in PDF format can be obtained by clicking here. For further information or to subscribe to the CHRISTIAN RESEARCH JOURNAL go to...

www.equip.org

Bonhoeffer – A Reliable Guide?

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945) is increasingly being quoted by evangelical writers and theologians. Eric Metaxas’ recent highly-acclaimed biography presents him as an evangelical martyr of the twentieth century. Stephen Nichols, President, Reformation Bible College, with a PhD from Westminster...

banneroftruth.org

 

[hammondjones]

I'm not particularly concerned with his particular beliefs by themselves. I just came across the idea in his work. I was more interested in discussing the history/theological implications of unison vs part singing.

Maybe an admin can change the title to just "Unison Singing".

 

[Jeri Tanner]

Reading Bonhoeffer's Life Together, I was intrigued by this part:


Compare Trinity Psalter Hymnal:



While I don't disagree that vanity can intrude in singing (and especially instrument playing!), he is coming down pretty strong on most of the Western Church here. And I found it slightly ironic that he would say this, since the Lutheran tunes are, to my ear, the most harmonically complex ones in the entire hymnal. Was there a tradition of unison singing in the Lutheran church?

The Genevan tunes were designed to be sung in unison. The Scottish Psalter tunes were, I understand, selected so as to make them as singable as possible.

The only denominations/traditions that I know of which sing semi-unison are those which line out the songs, like Old Regular Baptists, and Gaelic Psalmody, and apparently some Amish or other Anabaptists sing in unison to root out individualism

I see it often asserted that Calvin favored unison singing; where did he argue for that?

I found this interesting-looking resource: https://www.christianstudylibrary.org/article/john-calvin-psalms-and-hymns-public-worship


"Therefore Calvin discourages the use of polyphony, whereby the text may be confused and too much attention drawn to the music. The tune should be a simple means to convey the text. In Calvin’s view, chromatics, rhythmic variations, and other complications of the music hinder the impact of the text (CO 31, 324). To be sure, he did not oppose singing in two or more parts, but he did not deem it suitable for congregational worship. For Calvin was not so much concerned with the harmony of the sound, as with the harmony of the heart with God. Singing in unison heightens the effect of the text on the mind and the heart, and expresses the conviction that all worshippers belong to the priesthood of believers."

Quotations of Calvin derive from the Works of Calvin (Opera Calvini = CO) within the series Corpus Reformatorum; the passage cited occurs in CO 10, 5.

 

[Jeri Tanner]

Maybe an admin can change the title to just "Unison Singing".

Did so.

 

[hammondjones]

Singing in unison heightens the effect of the text on the mind and the heart, and expresses the conviction that all worshippers belong to the priesthood of believers.

Thanks.

Interestingly, it seems like most of broader evangelicalism has moved back to unison singing, since most 'worship music' doesn't have parts.

 

[Jeri Tanner]

Thanks.

Interestingly, it seems like most of broader evangelicalism has moved back to unison singing, since most 'worship music' doesn't have parts.

That’s a good point. When I was doing that kind of thing on “praise teams” the congregation didn’t normally sing at all— it was a performance.

The Genevan melodies with their lovely and haunting modes have a quality that makes up for no harmony parts. In my opinion.

 

[Taylor]

Interestingly, it seems like most of broader evangelicalism has moved back to unison singing, since most 'worship music' doesn't have parts.

When I was doing that kind of thing on “praise teams” the congregation didn’t normally sing at all— it was a performance.

Most of the melodies of today's church songs are unsingable—wide ambitus, extreme ranges, large leaps, and heavily syncopated rhythms. The reason why it is a performance is because it has to be; only professionals can sing some of those songs well.

 

[hammondjones]

unsingable

cough cough (in Christ alone)

 

[Taylor]

cough cough (in Christ alone)

I actually think that's a wonderful melody, and quite singable. It is largely stepwise, going up and down the pentatonic scale, save one note, which is the most natively singable scale. It has that one large leap. But other than that, it's rhythm fits the text, it is pentatonic, and very memorable. Frankly, I give the tune high marks.

 

[jwithnell]

I read this book last summer and was rather saddened by his remarks on singing and believed them to be out of sinc even with the Lutheran tradition. (Bach anyone?) He would basically silence my home. My husband, one son, and I have voices pitched in a lower range. We sing the bass or alto, or not much at all. We all love to sing God's praises and can't see a Biblical basis to not participate because our individual capabilities preclude singing the typical melody line.

In other places, the book (and one on meditation) were quite helpful. They roll back the hyper-individualism of the modern church. I found parallels between his upbringing and that of the early OPC leaders and I have purposely modeled my home accordingly. As an example, he stresses the need for the individual to dive deeply into small passages while the family takes on reading longer passages. He sees a critical needed for Christian fellowship and my family has adopted (among other practices) a sit-down Sunday breakfast both to mark the day apart and also to extend the time we spend with each other as fellow believers. We have become much richer in our family worship. Now that covid's rolled back, I'm hoping to cast a wider net with my home by offering hospitality more consistently.