The Geographic Sources show the influence that folk tunes has had on these tunes. The musical forms, meters, and often the tunes themselves are based directly on folktune models.
This is not an approach that appeals to me aesthetically, so it is the more necessary to consider its merits. But that is still too detached a viewpoint. "Church musicians" may argue vehemently over whether "classical/traditional" or "contemporary/popular" music should be "performed". But this is an irrelevant and diabolical dichotomy, which can be most easily corrected by a proper understanding of folk music. Hymns are sung for the singers rather than for a passive audience; their tunes are mostly transmitted by ear, through performances of untrained singers, across generations. Those characteristics are alien to classical and pop concert genres alike, but constitute a definition of folksong: therefore tunes for congregational use simply must be folk music.
No surprise, then, that reformers often turn to folksong models for hymn tunes: nor is it just uneducated editors who take this approach. Ambrose and Luther can be named as pioneers. Sir Arthur Sullivan and Sir Ralph Vaughan Williams -- both accomplished composers of hymn tunes, each one the most distinguished English musician of his generation -- adapted folk tunes. Professionally edited hymnals often include folk tunes from twenty or more cultures. This collection includes folk tunes from three continents.
Some advantages of this approach are obvious: the tunes are naturally easy to sing; they have evinced some musical merit by surviving a winnowing process, as opposed to being merely promoted by some entrepreneur out of financial self-interest. And since folksong is a phenomenon as wide as humanity, folk hymn tunes may help break us out of our cultural provincialism to appreciate the universality of the Gospel.2
Some potential disadvantages are unlikely to occur in practice. Most recorded folktunes were first transcribed and published when fading into obscurity as traditional cultures disappeared; therefore the tunes could hardly carry any secular association in the minds of worshippers, as well-known secular tunes might. Since there is seldom a traditional harmonization, one can be provided that meets the musical skills of the congregation.1
It is easy to complain that folk tunes don't always convey a reverent mood. Certainly in the early twentieth century3, in an obsession with pomposity verging on Victorian earnestness, American hymnal editors zealously expunged the remnants4 of their native folk hymn tunes. But what kind of music is always reverent? This is not an issue that can be addressed by prejudice for or against any style; it must be addressed for each tune. And there are different expressions of reverence suitable for different kinds of reverent speech: the problem with hymn tunes is more often irreverence for the text rather than for God.
Adapting folk tunes is one of the most productive methods of producing effective hymn tunes. Ralph Vaughan Williams' folk tune arrangements are in wider use than his original tunes. Of our hymnal editors, only Jack Boyd has shown any awareness of musical history or theory, recent hymnals in other traditions hold many fine adaptations, which could easily replace much of the intolerable ugliness5 in our hymnals, with enormous benefit to our singing.
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Copyright © 2002,2003,2004, Stephen Hutcheson
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| These studies are created by members of the West Allen Church of Christ in Allen, Texas |