Note Worthy

I remember a musician in our ward years ago. She played the organ professionally in a couple of churches, but of course in ours, she played without fee. Well, she could not stand the tempo at which the congregation insisted on singing. It seems odd to me that the organist could not pick up the pace and the folks would follow along, but that was apparently not the case, and regardless of her efforts with chorister and all, she was not able to change our dragging, lagging hymn singing. It was so painful to her that she finally had to abandon us to our pedantic pace—she started worshiping with the folks who actually paid her to be their accompaniest AND their metronome.

Well, that woman would go stark raving mad here. There are no organs. There are pianos in all chapels, but not in any other rooms in the buildings--so only voices in most meetings. There are few piano players. Those who play almost all play from the simplified book which uses chords and arpeggios not 4-part chords. These are then usually embellished by the pianist. The said embellishment adds seconds to every measure. The people love to squeeze every emotional drop from every line. Hence we sing slowly. Slow like molasses. Slow like proverbial turtles. Slow like snails and every other most famously slow thing.

At first it drove me crazy. Can the hymns at least not be butchered! I have a big voice, and so I tried just speeding up a bit, hoping someone would get into it and join me. No go—I just ended up singing a beat or two off everyone else, which honestly didn’t really bother anyone. They either politely ignored that the big white lady was really off tempo, or they liked the syncopation—I don’t know. But either way, nothing was about to change through my pitiful efforts.

The other thing I tried to fix at first was that some dotted notes were observed as written, some ignored, and others added randomly. At first I just thought it was a mistake of the pianist but no, it would repeat in every verse, and would happen even when there was no pianist. People have just learned certain songs certain ways, and they will only sing them that way. I can go ahead and sing what turns out to be harmonic rhythms, coming in a half beat “early, " though I'm singing what's written, or I can just learn the prevailing patterns and sing out with everyone else.

As to the tempo, I began to get used to it after a while. I had to give myself some little pep talks, but soon I just thought, Why not enjoy this song for as long as possible? When you think of it, Why hurry a perfectly lovely hymn, when you can make it last twice as long? And especially, why rush through a song sung in English with familiar lyrics and melodies, if not tempo and rhythms, when the alternative is an hour of an incomprehensible foreign tongue? SO I settled right in, and began milking every note.

That’s what I was doing this Sunday. Sister C. was arpeggio-ing up a raucous storm, using her whole body to accentuate the clanging chords. The chorister, a beautiful young Filipina, taller and more rounded than typical, was leading with her whole body too, sketching glorious huge circles with every beat and tapping her foot (slowly mind you). The congregation was robust, the acoustics reverberatory. Harmony was next to impossible because the arpeggios didn’t always allow for the alto and tenor notes, but who cares, we were singing "All is well" and it was! I woke from my musically induced revery to find we had taken long enough to actually sing the saints across the plains in real time. It was great! Like a simulation of plodding plain-crossing with musical accompaniment.

The Sacrament hymn was more of the same, but then those are usually supposed to be reverently slow. What was really almost comical was the congregational hymn. We sang, Now Let Us Rejoice, which is marked as 100-120 beats per minute. It’s supposed to clip along probably faster than anything in the hymn book. It took what felt like a full 15 minutes to sing that song. Each note, and I am not exaggerating, lasted a second or more (a great exercise in breath control). This was not andante, nor adagio: it was more like lento. (Yes, I had to look those up) We rejoiced and rejoiced and rejoiced, then rejoiced some more.

The line, “no longer as strangers on earth need we roam,” usually one I would speed by and never really notice, held much power as I sang it with all these good saints—formerly, but no longer strangers, at a pace that allowed for real reflection in the moment. Good Tidings ARE sounding to us and EACH nation. And in Amlan Branch this Sunday, the hour of redemption was approaching, not any too fast, but without doubt.

I almost forgot to describe the pace of the "lovely morning" we sang of in Relief Society. It was as if we were recording a sound track of the first vision and we had to last as long as the real event--like the director was saying, "slow down ladies, bees are still humming and the sweet the birds are still, singing. Don't rush it now" Mmmmm

Revel in it, I say.

Below are some pictures of some of the little people we get to teach or visit or worship with--some of the folks that are "no longer strangers".