Name Your Ten Favorite Common-Meter (86.86) Hymn Tunes*
  • Aristotle EsguerraAristotle Esguerra
    Posts: 1,196
    Please share your ten favorite Common Meter/CM/8686 hymn tunes below. Well-known, obscure, even overdone tunes are welcome...as long as they're among your favorites.

    If you wish, give a reason why a tune is on your list (tuneful, majestic, easily played, etc.).

    Tunes that call for repetitions of lyric lines are perfectly fine, e.g., CORONATION ("All Hail the Pow'r of Jesus' Name").

    *No need to mention GILLIGAN'S ISLAND. Because everyone loves GILLIGAN'S ISLAND.
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,718
    For convenient reference:

    http://www.hymnary.org/tunes?qu=meter:8.6.8.6 in:tunes&sort=totalInstances

    http://www.drshirley.org/churches/hymns-metric01.html


    Offhand, if memory serves, the common ones tend to be iambic rather than trochaic.

    Assuming you don't want CMD....

    Alphabetically

    MCGRATH - obscure but delightful: it's a tune by J.J. McGrath (d. 1967) to which Praise To The Holiest was set in the Pius X Hymnal and at #285 in Hymns, Psalms & Spiritual Canticles (it's CM with a CM refrain, so not really CMD)
    SONG 67 - I will always plug Gibbons' tunes when I can
    ST COLUMBA - yeah, faux Irish, but it works
    TALLIS ORDINAL - simple and supernal
    WINCHESTER OLD - lends itself to lovely descants; easy harmony for amateur singers

    Bonus mention for House of The Rising Sun?
    Thanked by 1Aristotle Esguerra
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,486
    'St Magnus'
    'This Endris Nyght'
    'Newman'
    'Winchester Old'
    'Caithness'
    'St Fulbert'
    'Bangor'
    'Jackson'
    'St Botolph'
    Thanked by 1Aristotle Esguerra
  • CHGiffenCHGiffen
    Posts: 5,311
    ... the common ones tend to be are by definition iambic rather than trochaic.
  • ronkrisman
    Posts: 1,414
    There are many fine CM tunes. My ten favorite (in alphabetical order) are:

    DETROIT
    DOVE OF PEACE (8 6 8 66 – repeats final line of text)
    GRÄFENBERG
    LAND OF REST
    MARTYRDOM
    McKEE
    MORNING SONG (CONSOLATION)
    ST. ANNE
    ST. COLUMBA

    Closely behind my ten favorites:

    CHRISTIAN LOVE
    ST. PETER
    SHANTI
    WINCHESTER OLD
    Thanked by 1Aristotle Esguerra
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,548
    (CM)
    Thanked by 1ronkrisman
  • dboothe
    Posts: 31
    Richmond (aka Chesterfield)
    Detroit
    Nun danket all' und bringet Ehr (aka Gräfenburg)
    St. Anne
    St. Peter
    McKee
    Land of Rest
    Cornhill
    St. Agnes
    New Britain
    Thanked by 1Aristotle Esguerra
  • BenBen
    Posts: 3,100
    GILLIGAN'S ISLAND.
    Thanked by 1Adam Wood
  • Richard MixRichard Mix
    Posts: 3,021
    Ahem: Gilligan was mentioned in the original post. HERNANDO'S HIDE-AWAY for LM.
    Thanked by 1Adam Wood
  • Rachel
    Posts: 5
    REPTON
    AUSTRIA
    HYFRYDOL
    ELLACOMBE
    MACCABAEUS
    ST COLUMBA
    AURELIA
    WOODLANDS
    LORD OF THE DANCE
    ST THEODULPH
  • hymndescants.org
    Posts: 29
    House of the rising sun is in CM.

    Jackson named This endrys nyght. Amen.
    Thanked by 1M. Jackson Osborn
  • Casavant Organist
    Posts: 818
    DOMINUS REGIT ME for the win.
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,486
    I have no new tune to add just now. But, noticing Rachel's list just above it jumped out at me how different texts and tunes are often made or unmade by their respective pairings. For instance, she listed Austria and Hyfrydol in succession. Can you imagine how almost desecrated 'Love Divine' or 'Alleluya, Sing to Jesus' would be sung to Austria? Or! how utterly bland and lacking in authority would be 'Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken' sung to Hyfrydol?

    Much has been made over some of the inept (and, inapt) pairings of some tunes long associated with given texts which became paired with new texts resulting in a really lackluster match in Worship IV and other hymnals. To be sure, there are many both texts and tunes that are successfully interchangeable, but, all too often the result is unfortunate when a trained ear and poetic sense are lacking.

    Avoided at all costs should be the cavalier matching of a new text which one wishes to have sung, but is matched in one's hymnal with an 'unknown' tune, with just any other tune that the people happen to know. The text will be robbed of its power and the tune will be an inevitable question mark. All congregations should be encouraged to learn new new tunes, enjoy them, and through all of one's considerable teaching skills should be taught to delight in increasing their knowledge and repertory. Attitude is everything. Attitude is everything. Attitude....
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,718
    America a/k/a My Country 'Tis of Thee sounds great sung to MOSCOW.
    Thanked by 1M. Jackson Osborn
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,486
    Well, (ha!) I don't know about great, but it does sound hickey.

    Then there's that old gospel song, 'What a Friend We Have in Jesus' - I once was giving an address to the ladies guild at a church I served, and to illustrate the interchangeablility of texts and tunes, I introduced them to 'What a Friend..' sung to Hyfrydol. Of course, 'What a Friend...' sung to anything is not a Good Thing, but, much to my surprise these ladies all said that they liked it better to Hyfrydol than to its old customary dog-eared and tattered excuse of a tune, Erie.

    And egad!!!
    I just had the most horrid thought - that means that 'Glorious Things...', 'Love Divine...', and 'Alleluya, sing to Jesus' could all be sung to Erie. Please! Don't anyone do that.
  • Richard MixRichard Mix
    Posts: 3,021
    Too late: with so many suggestible people in this forum, you really ought to exercise you considerable authority more responsibly.

    With a concert of devotional trouvere/minnesanger poetry tomorrow (St David of Wales, Richmond California 11:15 AM) I've been playing around with Longfellow's 8787 Vogelweide poem for an encore. Suggestions other than PLEADING SAVIOUR, anybody?
    Thanked by 1M. Jackson Osborn
  • ViolaViola
    Posts: 413
    'What a friend we have in Jesus' sounds wonderful sung to Scarlet Ribbons; as you might expect, it gives the words a completely different feel.Try it and see. I think this was the idea of Rev. John Bell of the Iona Community.
    My favourite CM tune is University written by Charles Collignon; I love the joyful leap in the first line, though whether or not it sounds joyful depends on who's singing it.
    Thanked by 1M. Jackson Osborn
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,486
    .
  • Joseph Michael
    Posts: 261
    CAPEL There is a land of pure delight
  • davido
    Posts: 1,245
    What CM hymn tune would you match to this text?
    https://hymnary.org/text/rose_of_the_cross_thou_mystic_flower
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,718
    I would change the Mary Mary double lines simply to be a single "Mary, remember me". While "Mary" in speech is usually trochaic, the rest of the text is iambic, but you might get away with a "Mary" that is sung about 1/2 to 2/3 closer to "Marie".

    Try that out with, say, "ST ANNE", to hear what I mean.
  • Paolo
    Posts: 25
    If I were English, I would like to sing the music tune "King's Norton " by Jeremiah Clarke at church:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERSz7EMMjtY
    Also the text seems beautiful, translated from "Jesus rex admirabilis".
    I envy the adaptability of English meter.
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 3,799
    Me and thee pair better but as English doesn’t give points for consonance and rhyme together like in Romance language and culture, you could also put Mary at the end to avoid the Marie problem.
  • TLMlover
    Posts: 167
    Imagine "What a Friend We Have in Jesus" sung by Robert Duvall as an old man, a capella, not in strict rhythm, in that wonderful drawl he had. Very cool. Don't rag on WAFWHIJ, it's very special to many people. The lyrics are what count. I don't find the tune as hideous as some.

    I have changed my mind about many different hymns, just hearing them sung in an unusual way. For example, Amazing Grace. Never liked it at all, not one bit. Then I heard it sung a capella with out of tune harmony and lyrics called, in the movie Coal Miner's Daughter, during the scene of the funeral of Loretta Lynn's father. From then on I have grown to like the hymn more.



  • Diapason84
    Posts: 168
    Tunes:
    St. Fulbert
    Kilmarnock
    NOT New Britain
    I'll come back to post more later.
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