Talk

I don't mind people doing descant if they are singing the right words, it's a service not a concert after all. I like the fact that everyone's singing together, whether they can sing or, like me, cannot carry a tune in a bucket.

I couldn’t sing the words Virgin or Womb, they were too excruciatingly rude!

As a former boy chorister and long time tenor in many church choirs I believe that you should sing the words as they are rather than modernising. Largely because the archaic 'King James' type language used is usually easier to sing in terms of more open vowel sounds (such as 'Thee' vs 'you') and is much more poetic in keeping with setting to music. It is also often what the music was written for and alternative lyrics are either shoe-horned in or don't fit the music in other ways. The idea that we need to use modern plainspeak in everything we do in church is a pernicious idea that stems from the mistaken and unfounded belief that this will suddenly make lots of people come to church. The result is the undermining of many great church traditions including the fantastic Anglican choral tradition that is suffering so badly at the moment. I'm lucky to go to a church that has a robed choir and there isn't a spare seat in the place for our carol service so hardly off putting.

Yeah, I was totally all set to never believe in God, but then they swapped 'thou' for 'you', and now I feel like the whole bible-everlasting-life thing is totally relatable.

I saw a lovely drawing of a nativity scene once including a big fat bloke, whom the child had informed their parents was Round John Virgin

Yeah, I was totally all set to never believe in God, but then they swapped 'thou' for 'you', and now I feel like the whole bible-everlasting-life thing is totally relatable.

And it's '4 colly birds' not calling birds, if we're being proper.

Explanation about round yon virgin here, all you lot that were laughing had better take the shame

www.ministrymatters.com/all/entry/2178/round-yon-virgin

I love the music you find in a traditional church. It’s such a shame that our children don’t learn all the hymns and carols now, it amazing being able to walk into a church and join in with music you’ve known for decades. Singing together is like a big community hug. There seems a push towards modernising and dumbing down everything. I learned a lot of Latin through church music. It’s a great basis in understanding English. Unfortunately it’s yet another victim of political correctness. I’d love my DS yo join a church choir in a couple of years and I think he’d love it too but nowadays the only ones around for young people are full on cathedral ones (well it seems that way).

I didn't know people mispronounce 'yon'

Lots of people sing 'king' for kin though.

My dsis when very little used to sing 'Oh come all ye faithful, joyful and umpumpant.' IIRC she once sang it at the top,of her voice in the hairdresser's - in the middle of summer!

Glad to say that Gdd aged 2.7 is almost word perfect in Away In A Manger, first verse at least, learned largely at nursery, with 'thee' and all the other proper words. Glad her nursery doesn't feel the need to dumb down!

We're not religious, but I've still ordered a very simple 'The First Christmas' board book, so at least she'll know what a crib is, and why the baby was asleep on the hay. To me it's just another aspect of general knowledge.

I remember being at a nativity and when the kids sang "round yon virgin" they all mimed either a round pregnant tummy or round like a circle.

I always thought it referred to a chubby virgin. Didn't have a clue what a virgin was, though.

The intimacy of 'thee' (the former equivalent of 'tu' form) is lost ineveryday speech. But I like how it lives on in hymns, carols and the old prayer book.

I know they’re the right words, puppy, but that wasn’t really what was making me laugh. It was the phrasing of that sentence,

Fairly certain that if that’s in the Carol service this year I’m going to have to stop myself from laughing there.

Dominic the Italian Xmas donkey

I thought Nestor, the Long-eared Donkey carried Mary?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestor,_the_Long%E2%80%93Eared_Christmas_Donkey

"If a choir is doing a carol service, they often hate if random people from the congregation decide to sing a descant".

Yes, God forbid people should actually want to sign and enjoy themselves during a service.....if it's a concert, absolutely people should shut up and appreciate, but a service is for participating.

My trendy vicar decided to try seated singing at a 'Songs of Praise' type community service. Several determined Baptist ladies refused to comply, because you can't belt out 'And can it be...?' properly unless vertical.

well it depends how much the choir is leading the service - in the one I'm thinking of, the choir had a decidedly different version planned and random people from the congregation doing their own thing didn't quite work... And I"m not sure it was exactly a service; it wasn't quite a concert, but not really a formal religious service either - lots of audience participation, but it was meant to be led by the choir and the choir director who introduced the various items.

nothing wrong with the congregation/audience singing - they were meant to - but it was the fact they decided to sing descants that was a problem!

You can't sing a descant if you don't know what harmonies the organist/choir have in mind. It might not fit.

Singing carols in anything other than Latin is a bit of a leap for me

Bloody convent education.

No YADNBU.

My personal hatred is the newest 4th edition of the Church of Scotland hymn book which adds another verse to In the Bleak Midwinter with "breast" in it leading to sniggering from teen boys, as well as removing all the thous. I prefer the proper version of the Lords prayer with "forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors" and the Apostles Creed with "from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead".

Hang on a minute, bring rhymes with king! Am sure it was king when I was at school in the 70s...

TheFaierieQueen

We learned "O come all ye faithfull" in latin at school and we were C of S. And they still learn 'Silent Night' in German for some reason! Can still remember a lot of them both.

I love all the old carols and the correct words. Only thing I didnt like about kids nativitiy services were all the 'new' carols nobody except kids knew! I still know all the words to the oldies (a hundred years later) despite not going to church apart from twice a year for school events for donkeys years.

Crumpet its always been 'kin' I went to school in late 60s and 70s.

...I love thee.
...live with thee there

NOT thy bedside, that would refer to Jesus’s bedside

Y are so NBU.

DS's school don't even make the kin/king mistake in We Wish You a Merry Christmas - they've completely dropped the word and replaced it with 'friends'. WTF?!

I also got totally caught out by the 'new' Lord's Prayer the other week in church. I'm a frightful heathen so I hardly ever go apart from children's events, but I do love the traditions! hypocrite