Lord Jesus, think on me

[organgrinder]

Have been lurking on this forum for a while, but now braving active participation. Yesterday we had this hymn to the usual Southwell tune and I played through the whole verse as written (minims at the beginning and end of each line of text). I knew there was a tendency to sing it like ‘Blest are the pure in heart’ (Franconia) but I stuck to my guns, despite some initial chaos. With no choir/cantor at this mass it took several verses for people to cotton on, including the PP who must have thought I was being pedantic - or worse! What does anyone else do with this hymn?

Best wishes to all.

[docmattc]

Welcome to the forum Organgrinder!

Its been a good few years since I sang this, and I don't think I've ever played it. My recollection was minims at the end of each line except the third, no minims at the start.

Wouldn't minims at the start make it sound very odd?

Lord... Jesus think on me
and... purge away my sin
from... earthbound whatever the next line is.

[Ros Wood]

I would find it very strange to sing this without the minims at the beginning of each line. Not that we sing it very often.

[Hare]

It has minims in most books, but is incorrectly given in CFE with dotted minim-crotchet rhythms. I always play it with minims; the only problem I havde is a lady with a loud voice at the Vigil Mass, who tries to iron any tune out into equal crotchets, getting faster and faster as a hymn progresses! Grr.

[mcb]

We always do it with minims. If memory serves, the version in Celebration Hymnal for Everyone has crotchets. Can't remember where I tracked down the version with minims, but I knew it was the one I wanted.

[nazard]

I had to look at "Franconia" to see what you meant. I confess, I always play "Southwell" to that rhythm, from CfE, and I hadn't realised I was doing it wrong(ly). So much for education...

I feel minims would sound a bit odd though. The rhythm of the last two lines of Southwell does raise another question. I have heard organists lengthen the last note of a line when it is the same length as all the other notes in a line, and then pause before continuing the next line.So, with Southwell, at the end of the third line you get "set me free" all to crochets, and then the fourth line starts "and", also a crochet. I was taught to play crochets for "set me", a quaver for "free", take a quaver rest to let the singers breath, and continue in crochets, thereby not breaking the rhythm. I have heard organists play crochets for "set me", a minim for "free", a crochet's rest, and continue in crochets. This latter seems common in the CofE. My present teacher (an anglican) says either is acceptable. A Methodist organist I know uses my method. The problem also occurs in many other tunes, for example, "Eisenach", which is my favourite hymn tune. What do other board members do?

[Lakelark]

When I was a boy in an Anglican cathedral choir, the director of music referred to the doubled notes at the beginning of lines as "gathering" notes. Southwell has this rhythm in, for instance, English Hymnal. Another example is O God, our help in ages past. Our director, an accomplished academic musician to whom I owe an enormous debt, explained that these gathering notes were designed to help singers who could not have read music even if copies had been available to them. The organ played a semibreve at the beginning of each line, but the singers began to sing on the second minim beat of that semibreve. (I hope that description is understandable.) This procedure informed the singers of the note to be sung at the beginning of each line: they heard the semibreve chord, and imitated it one beat later.

I have no idea whether this theory holds water. It sounds a bit like an aetiological myth to me, rather than a historical fact. Does any great mind out there have a different explanation? It would be good to hear, even if the procedure I described is now, with the availability of printed copies, arguably redundant.

[FrGareth]

The only setting I'm familiar with, mostly from seminary is Franconia as rendered at http://www.oremus.org/hymnal/mid/franconi.mid except that the first note feels too short in the midi file.

FrG

[docmattc]

A quick raid of my bookshelves reveals most hymnbooks have versions of Southwell for this hymn:

• Laudate, Hymns O&N and Celebration Hymnal (1978 edition) have minims start and end of every line
• 'Songs of Praise' and 'The English Hymnal' have minims (well, semi-brieves) start and end of every line and a fermata at the end of line 3
• 'Praise the Lord' does not have minims. Its written as I have sung it (described above) above: no long note to start any line and no long note at the end of line 3
• Hymns A&M has this to St Paul's, the 'Southwell' tune it has is CM not SM

Incidentally, where I'm from "Southwell" would be pronounced "Suthall"

[organgrinder]

Thanks for all the replies. It seems there's a 'correct' way (and I heard it thus on the Ash Wednesday broadcast from Liverpool Met Cathedral) and a more intuitive assembly-friendly way (as per this midi file http://nethymnal.org/htm/l/o/lojthink.htm). I think I might just avoid this tune in future.

No one would dare mess with the minims in Old Hundredth for 'All people that on earth do dwell'!

[alan29]

I have always sung O God our help and Lord Jesus think on me without the minims. Something to do with hymnbooks I'm sure.
A couple of random thoughts ......
I wonder why the same thing wasn't done to Old 100th.
I thought gathering notes were the first note of each verse, not each line.
Anyone heard Hebridean psalm singing it uses gathering phrases rather than notes - it raises the hairs on the back of my neck.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3MzZgPBL3Q&feature=PlayList&p=97620BE6A789F798&index=0

[docmattc]

It seems there's a 'correct' way (and I heard it thus on the Ash Wednesday broadcast from Liverpool Met Cathedral) and a more intuitive assembly-friendly way (as per this midi file http://nethymnal.org/htm/l/o/lojthink.htm). I think I might just avoid this tune in future.

The only source I've found for the 'assembly friendly' version is 'Praise the Lord'. I wonder if the editors changed the rythym for this or if it was in existence before that? As at least two of its editors will be at Summer School this year, that would be a good opportunity to grill them about it!

[St Wilfrid]

Another lurker, braving first-time active participation as well (gulp)….

The origin of gathering notes – from what I understand – is rooted in the rather bizarre but well-documented English practice of the “lining-out” of metrical psalms, from reformation days, where before each line was sung by the congregation, the minister would read out the words. Presumably to do with the absence of books, general all-round illiteracy, and the emphasis on the vernacular. Each line of the psalm would then necessarily have to start with a relatively longer note – the gathering note - giving people a chance to wake up / catch breath / re-establish pitch. When the practice of lining-out eventually died away, the psalm tunes still retained the longer notes at the start of each line, hence the minim-minim figure in Southwell and similar. Completely redundant though (IMHO) a lot more aesthetically interesting even if the result was accidental.

There were attempts in the 19th Century to clean these metrical psalm tunes up, sorting out the problem of stresses on the “wrong” syllables - not universally adopted hence the plethora of versions today. The same thing has actually been done to Old 100th - I’ve come across such versions – including crotchet-only variants - in Methodist circles.

We use CfE here; I heard the Ash Wednesday broadcast and we subsequently ditched the intuitive CfE reading in favour of the archaic one, without any problems with the assembly. The offset stresses gave this hymn and edge that wouldn’t be there if we just sung what was obvious; it was actually quite wonderful.

[docmattc]

Welcome on board St Wilfrid!

Fascinating stuff. I've just looked in my Methodist rooted hymnbok (edited by Ira Sankey so late 1880s) and it indeed has the Old 100th with entirely even notes throughout the whole piece.

[docmattc]

That's hymnbook...a hymnbok is a particularly musical type of antelope