guitar music

[oopsorganist]

Just reading Nick Batty's thread and thinking. Ouch.

I have been looking around for guitar stuff. The guitarists do just play 1 1V V because that is what we get given. I cant improvise at speed and under stress during services but I could play classical type arrangements by sight reading but I have to write my own... so far I have got around to doing "Be still for the Presence of the Lord ... and that took two years! Anyone know of anything out there? Otherwise you do just fall back on strumming.

The organist gets full dots but the guitarist has to knit their own which is hard because many guitarists are self taught and so on.

Ideas anyone?

[oopsorganist]

Yes that is true on the above thread. Sometimes the organist does not get full dots and there is a lot of boring arrangement out there. Sruggle with the first verse. Get the second under control. Get a bit bored with the third. Brain bleeding by the fourth verse. All sounding like a fair ground organ too. Ah well. I've got a book of so called last verses with a descant thing going on or other less predictlable arrangement for standard hymns but when I play them people say "What happened to you in the last verse?" Ah well.

[sidvicius]

You have reminded me of an interesting effect I noticed during a recent CofE sojourn. The organist would invariably 'embellish' the penultimate verse to such extent that the melody of the hymn was utterly lost - not too much of a problem if you know the tune (but very distracting), but very much a problem if you don't, and neither does anyone else, or even if they do, you can't hear them because the organ is making too much noise.
I reiterate my point made elsewhere about how the music is played, and add that regardless of how highly we regard the organ, like any other instrument it is only there to support the voices. Indeed there is simply no point in musical accompaniment if all it does is drown the prayers (the singing) of the congregation. I hope all we here can agree on this point, because I think it is fundamental to correct use of music in the mass.

[oopsorganist]

Good!

That's a relief. Throw that book away then!

[docmattc]

Just reading Nick Baty's thread and thinking. Ouch.

But don't get disheartened when eminent musicians with huge amounts of resources seem to criticise what is being done by those of us who are not so well resourced.
As long as what you are doing is for the glory of God, and to enable to people of God to pray, and you are constantly striving to improve, then I don't think anyone is in a position to pass judgement.

[docmattc]

Just reading Nick Baty's thread and thinking. Ouch.

Hang on! Hang on! Which thread?

Is this a dig because...

No! Its not a dig at you Nick. After reading comments such as those you pointed us to it would be easy to panic and think that unless we're all of James MacMillan's standard we're not good enough. Just trying to allay such fears. I suspect my sympathies would very much align with yours

[oopsorganist]

Hey,

I didn't say that! You misquoted me!

I said I am going to throw away that book about last verses and I'm not at all disheartened by doing it! I've got a much better book by Bernadette Farrell.

We had a lovely Mass on Sunday with lots of people singing.

Why don't skeletons sing in church? Because they haven't got an organ. Boom boom.