Leave the melody to the congregation.

I have touched on this before, but it is worth repeating: when you have a set up like ours - guitar(s) with flutes (and/or other such instruments) - it really is a waste to simply have the flautist belting out the melody.  Once the congregation know and are comfortable with something - be it a hymn or a mass setting - they will join in, especially if led by a cantor and/or singing group.  Instead, allow the flautist to play harmonies to enrich the music.

For some time now I have been adding harmonies to music that we have been playing for the last four or five years, using the wonderful (and free) musical notation software MuseScore.  As the workshop at last year's Summer School made clear, anyone who is even remotely musical can develop their own, simple, one line harmony for any given melody; it just needs a little time and some trial and error.  But, if you have more than one 'solo' instrument, why stop at one harmony?

When at full strength we presently have one guitar, one mandolin and two flutes.  I have been transposing music from the organ version of our hymnal which gives me four lines of music - one melody and three harmonies which, if vocal, we could call alto, tenor and bass.  Typically, the first verse is played in unison and in subsequent verses one flute will maintain the melody, the mandolin will take the alto line and the second flute alternate between the tenor and bass lines - to give a little variation.  If we have just the one flute then, after the first verse, it will alternate between the three harmonies.

Last week, for the first time, we had harmonies for all the hymns that we played, and the response from people in the congregation reflected that; several commented on how well it sounded and how it enhanced the liturgy.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

What does “Fever Pitch” (film, 1997) teach us about liturgy?

Don't forget to nurture your own faith.

Gospel Acclamation