Advent III: Joy

Death Valley superbloom; photograph by Paul Vasile

Joy Shall Come in the Morning - Mary Alice Amidon

This hopeful song by Mary Alice Amidon was introduced to us by Rachel Kroh, MtMC’s first Executive Director. Notice how Rachel teaches the refrain to the assembly through call and echo, then invites a small choral ensemble to sing the verses in harmony. This is a wonderful way to imagine learning new hymns (especially with a chorus/refrain), alternating between the voice of the assembly and a choir (small or large).

Here’s a video of the Starry Mountain Singers sharing it in a four-part arrangement, as well as a link to purchase a score and learn more about this song created in the days after the Virginia Tech shooting.  

Advent II: Peace

Snow geese migration; photograph by Paul Vasile

Cantemus pacem mundi - Doug von Koss

As the second week of Advent invites us to pray and work for peace in our world, here is a three-part layered song by Doug von Koss that puts feet on our prayers. Written to protest the United States invasion of Iraq in 2003, Doug wanted a strong musical statement that would “lift the desire for peace to a more assertive and active place.” He borrowed a melody he had heard in Canada and used a short Latin phrase (translated "sing for the peace of the world") as the text. 

Notice how patiently Marilyn teaches each part, inviting those in the circle to listen and breathe together as the song grows in confidence. While this piece may be ambitious for a congregation new to paperless singing, try teaching one of the parts to the assembly and invite additional leaders or a choir to sing the others. It could also serve as an excellent warm-up for a choir beginning to explore oral/aural tradition learning.

Advent I: Hope

Sunrise in Williston, North Dakota; photograph by Paul Vasile

Listen - Bret Hesla

The first week of Advent invites us into a space of hopeful waiting and watching. This short song by singer/songwriter Bret Hesla is one way to invite the community to 'tune up' their ears and bodies, and could be used for gathering, prayer, or to prepare the community to hear a reading.

Debbie Lou Ludolph models how this song can function in a call and response format. She first teaches the response, "Be open oh my heart" with a simple gesture. Then she calls, "listen, listen...watching, watching...waiting, waiting," and the community responds. Additional calls can be added and improvised in the moment: Love is calling, Ever hopeful, etc.

Find a score for the song on Bret's website or in the Augsburg's collection Singing Our Prayer: Companion to Holden Prayers Around the Cross.

Advent is around the corner and this year Music that Makes Community is excited to offer musical resources to share in your community. As we prepare for and celebrate the arrival of the Word who ‘became flesh and lived among us’ we can’t imagine a better experience of embodied faith than singing with others!

We’ve organized musical material around Revised Common Lectionary texts (Year A) and themes for each week. There are links to with links to videos, recordings, and scores. We offer teaching suggestions and they are just that…suggestions. You're welcome to adapt them to your space and worship context.

Fiona Vidal-White is a musician, Christian educator, and liturgist currently serving at Church of Our Savior in Arlington, MA. She is the author of the hymnal My Heart Sings Out and its companion leader’s guide, designed as a musical resource for all-age worship. Her passions include the welcome and formation of all God’s people, especially children and teens, through teaching and learning, hands-on in-reach, and outreach and liturgy and music.

Read Part I of Fiona's reflection here.

What ideas should we consider when singing with children and intergenerational groups? A good starting point might be “how can I model and facilitate best practices in (church) music for children as they grow up?"  

Also take into consideration the developmental skills of children, and the different interests and priorities they have in each stage of life, and the fact that their adults will probably be with them, and like to know that what we are singing has meaning and value as well as being fun. Then there’s the fit of the song with what’s happening in worship. Are we reading, praying, sharing a meal? What is the theme of the service? Baptism, a Saint’s Day, the different seasons of Advent, Lent, or Easter? Matching our music choices to enhance the teaching without being “teachy” is, I believe, a major role of simple congregational music.

Fiona Vidal-White is a musician, Christian educator, and liturgist currently serving at Church of Our Savior in Arlington, MA. She is the author of the hymnal My Heart Sings Out and its companion leader’s guide, designed as a musical resource for all-age worship. Her passions include the welcome and formation of all God’s people, especially children and teens, through teaching and learning, hands-on in-reach, and outreach and liturgy and music.

I certainly didn’t know the term then, but it was paperless music that drew me into both singing as a youth choir member, working with children and church music, and finally creating a hymnal of my own that focused on intergenerational singing. I was a teen when my father, a vicar in the UK, purchased Sound of Living Waters to go in our pews alongside Hymns Ancient and Modern, and us choir kids were so thrilled. We sang Seek ye First, and I Will Sing a Song unto the Lord,  We See the Lord, and Let All That is Within Me Cry Holy, as well as many of the hymns. As we developed a repertoire, we were allowed to choose the communion songs “on the fly”, which we really enjoyed.

This October Music That Makes Community collaborated with Alice Parker, a legend in the choral music world. Best known for arrangements and compositions created for the Robert Shaw Chorale, community singing has been her passion and joy for the past four decades.  

Alice and I had the opportunity to lead Sharing the Song, a workshop for song leaders excited to nurture and sustain singing in their communities. In partnership with her non-profit Melodious Accord and Eden Theological Seminary, MMC was part of welcoming 18 song leaders to a transformative time of skill building and reflection.

"It was the perfect wedding of instruction, inspiration, and affirmation for me as a community song leader. I take home a renewed sense of the energy and power of music." 

While many come to our workshops expecting to learn new songs, they discover something even more transformative - new ways to build community through singing, even in unexpected places! 
 
Did you have a required morning class your first year of college? The one you only survived with coffee or skipped more than you care to admit?
 
Dr. Justin Yonker, a professor at Hollins University in Roanoke, Virginia attended MMC’s Paperless Singing/Story Sharing workshop at St. Elizabeth’s Episcopal Church in September. Inspired by our encouragement to take singing to places where it could help create community, he walked into his Intro to Astronomy class the next morning and taught a song. It didn’t take long for students to jump right in. And for the rest of the semester they sang before each class and students led songs of their own (all astronomy-themed, of course)!

While many come to our workshops expecting to learn new songs, they discover something even more transformative - renewed confidence and creativity as leaders! 

Consider the testimony of Sarah Brockus, a United Methodist musician who attended our fall workshop at Cross Roads Camp and Retreat Center in New Jersey:

"I can’t thank you enough for the gift of this retreat. Our Pastor was gone this Sunday so I led almost the whole service – and the spirit moved in ways it never has before!

The workshop gave me permission to “go with it.” I composed, I shaped – I made up whole new things in the moment that I’ve never done before. The congregation’s response was through the roof!! And they appreciated that I took time to fully teach them the songs – the listening part was extremely important 

The communal spirit was heavenly and received positive feedback from the congregations for weeks afterward!"

Jeanette Burgess is the Music Director at St. John's Lutheran Church in Atlanta, GA, a community with a lively, diverse musical life that includes paperless singing. Last year, she emailed to share a set of Advent chants created with her community. We offer them to you with her explanation of the process, hoping they'll jumpstart creative thinking as you approach the holiday season.

At our 2017 Advent planning retreat, we read the scriptures for a given Sunday then were invited to capture our thoughts in haiku fashion (syllables in a 5-7-5 pattern). The results were amazing and four became the basis for our Advent candle lighting chants.  After deciding on melodies and considering the sparseness of the season, I limited accompaniment choosing from the following instruments: recorder, hand chime, Chinese cymbal, dingsha/finger cymbal, udu, and djembe.  

The poems were also used as an opening worship statement and as part of the dismissal each week.