Simply hymns for beginner guitar players

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justMary
Posts: 90
Joined: Sun Apr 25, 2010 9:53 pm
Parish / Diocese: Republic of Ireland

Simply hymns for beginner guitar players

Post by justMary »

I'm hanging out with a new, multi-cultural (1/3 immigrant), young (don't have stats, but LOTS of kids) parish in Ireland. Limited resources, big on commitment to the idea that music is intrinsic to Catholic worship, that the primary choir is the entire gathered assembly, and that we don't want just one of anything, especially musicians 'cos they get bossy and it makes waves.

So there's a group of musicians who play as needed / as available, and occasionally we sing unaccompanied. We need to grow the pool. Someone has offered to run group guitar classes for kids - the classes are cheap, but they have to play (something) at Mass once a month. The catch is that the teacher hasn't been involved with church music for 30 years, so he's not sure what hymns might be suitable anymore :)

So I'm looking for suggestions. Simple meditation / reflection pieces they could use at offertory or communion, most probably (reduces the risk of clapping afterwards). But open to other ideas too.

Our current repertoire is mainly the sort of music that makes most people on this list despair! Simple, very well known and singable, with lots of repetition. But we do sing Mass parts - and I'd love to make sure there's at least one or two on the list, so they get the idea of singing-the-Mass too. (We introduced the Glendalough Holy Holy this morning - went ok, but the tune is too complex for this group initially - and there are no guitar chords in the published version we have.)

Any ideas?
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VML
Posts: 727
Joined: Thu Feb 12, 2004 12:57 am
Parish / Diocese: Clifton Diocese
Location: Glos

Re: Simply hymns for beginner guitar players

Post by VML »

I have produced a VERY simple set of Acclamations for just this kind of situation. Once I would just have sent them to you, as I always use exact straight text, but I had better get them aproved first.

As far as hymns go, today our alternative group were playing, and it was the induction Mass for this year's First HC group, and the hymns were all well received and sung by all: Gather us in; Here I am Lord; Peace, perfect peace; Make me a channel; and Moses, I know....
As you say, the kind of thing that causes cringes here, but well known standards your singers can share.

I hope you have success with this, it sounds a good foundation.
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