Give Him All You Can Be (SATB, Organ) .. Organ idiom, registration help wanted!
  • mrcoppermrcopper
    Posts: 653
    3 minute anthem for chorus and organ

    Not entirely comfortable writing for organ, can someone please tell me if I notated something like, in baseball, "Hit a Home Basket" ... also if my recording is sufficiently accurate in terms of organ sounds to what I said should be used.

    Thank you. And comments welcome too about liturgical appropriateness, where an anthem in English might be used.

    btw I know quite well it sounds electronic, because it is The day I get a better one I'll destroy this temporary one.

    Pdf attached and here

    Mp3 recording here


    0260_Give_Him.pdf
    671K
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,482
    This sounds very familiar...
  • mrcoppermrcopper
    Posts: 653
    Yes, I asked for help with organ and no one offered so I attempted to do it myself. But I am truly nervous about the quality of my organ writing since I've only done it a few times before. Also renamed it, and with the organ vs piano, maybe will get a different view as to appropriateness for services.
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,216
    [Note the correction below this comment.]
    This hymn text appeared in four collections from 1918-1951, and the author E.L. Walton is known only for this one text, according to hymnary.org. Probably for good reason: it's not very good writing.

    Notice the odd expression: "sleeping where he is laid". It's awkward, and it's confusing in terms of time: can He be sleeping when right now while He is being set down somewhere? There's the tricky usage of "lay, laid" vs. "lie, lain". Is the "laid" supposed to be transitive or intransitive? It looks like the author bent the text to get a rhyme, and isn't even saying anything substantial.

    That brings up another point: what theology is behind this text? Is it just a bunch of pretty talk? If the text isn't making a theological statement, it isn't deep enough. Three of the four hymnals that published it were Mennonite, Unitarian, and Mormon children's hymnals. These are not denominations known for their theological depth. And two of them reject sound doctrine on the Incarnation/Nativity.

    The phrase "where he is laid" creates the suggestion that someone put Jesus down and went off to do something else. Jesus is alone in this scene. Where is his mother?

    So you could write this and sell it as a 2-part children's piece for doctrinally soft denominations; but if you do, maybe it would be a good idea to use a pseudonym for your non-Catholic works.
    Thanked by 2Gavin Adam Wood
  • mrcoppermrcopper
    Posts: 653
    All I can say is LOL. And thanks, of course.

    As a matter of history, I believe that I wrote this text in 2013, June. Ignorant of Walton's usage, I said "sleeping where He was laid.
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,216
    Oh, sorry for my mistake; I saw the same first line used by Walton ("...and be not dismayed"), and wanted to think that someone other than you was the source of the text.

    I've fixed the link above, leading to the hymnary.org page about Walton's text. Alas, it doesn't show the whole thing.

  • mrcoppermrcopper
    Posts: 653
    Lol again, and thanks for your charity:
    wanted to think that someone other than you was the source of the text.
  • mrcoppermrcopper
    Posts: 653
    Updated recording, as an experiment, with an experimental tuning called "equal temperament". Same link.
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