New hymns/songs

[Alecia123]

Not sure how to use this wiki or who to ask....but just confirming that the church is no longer accepting new music submissions, correct? I'm going thru my mom's music and found a hymn she wrote and copyrighted in 2005, using the words from Doctrine & Covenants 84: 99-102. She passed away in July 2022. Just thought I'd check. Thx...

[davesudweeks]

Not sure how to use this wiki or who to ask....but just confirming that the church is no longer accepting new music submissions, correct? I'm going thru my mom's music and found a hymn she wrote and copyrighted in 2005, using the words from Doctrine & Covenants 84: 99-102. She passed away in July 2022. Just thought I'd check. Thx...

If you review the timeline half-way down this page (https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/ini ... s?lang=eng) it appears the submission deadline has passed for the new hymnbook.

However, you can still submit new music here (not for the new hymnbook, though): https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/mus ... c?lang=eng
You may not be able to submit your mother's work, though, since the site states you can only submit your own work.

[tumkin]

docgnorris wrote:
> Most of the arrangements for the new hymns/songs being released are for the
> piano. Are we supposed to just try our best to adapt them when playing the
> organ? Or are we going to be moving toward playing the piano in the chapels
> instead of the organ?

All the new hymns can be played on the organ. The bass line is played with the organ pedals, and often some of your notes on the keyboard must be tied to make the hymn legato, rather than choppy. A few of the new hymns tend to favor being played on the piano, but ALL of them are fine for playing on the organ. I've played all of them for church on the organ. I've been an organist since I was a teen --for 40ish years and had excellent private teachers, one of whom now teaches at the free church organ classes available online-Elizabeth Forsyth--her classes are ALWAYS worth taking. In recent years the Church has offered through BYU various organ classes, and anyone serving in an organist position, particularly those who haven't taken private organ lessons, would benefit greatly from taking advantage of these great free classes offered. Here's the link: https://www.bigmarker.com/communities/b ... onferences

[ambldsorg]

I notice the new English version Hymn 1001 has a slightly different arrangement, mostly in the left hand.

I too noticed the difference. "Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing" was also in the English hymn book that was in use prior to the 1985 hymnal (which is probably the same arrangement for the Hungarian hymnal). It was a blue book (or sometimes brown). The tenor part, in particular, is considerably different. Also, the entire hymn has been transposed from E-flat major to C-sharp major. Also an additional verse (no. 2) has been added. Maybe one day the Church will publish the rational for the various changes to hymns over the years---I think that would make for an interesting read. You may not know that when they published the 1985 edition, a lot of the songs were transposed a key or two lower---who knows, maybe the general trend for members has been to have lower vocal registers.

[lajackson]

Maybe one day the Church will publish the rational for the various changes to hymns over the years---I think that would make for an interesting read. You may not know that when they published the 1985 edition, a lot of the songs were transposed a key or two lower---who knows, maybe the general trend for members has been to have lower vocal registers.

The Church music department actually said at the time in a published Church News article that one of the reasons key changes were made was because sharps were easier to play than flats.

After I laughed myself to sleep, I woke up Sunday morning realizing that I could no longer play six of the eight hymns I had learned to play for priesthood meeting. We alternated the remaining two until I learned to play a third hymn. I never relearned the others.

[rmrichesjr]

...

After I laughed myself to sleep, I woke up Sunday morning realizing that I could no longer play six of the eight hymns I had learned to play for priesthood meeting. We alternated the remaining two until I learned to play a third hymn. I never relearned the others.

You know, that problem could have been solved by a piano with auto-transpose functionality.

[ambldsorg]

The Church music department actually said at the time in a published Church News article that one of the reasons key changes were made was because sharps were easier to play than flats.

I think this is a highly subjective reason. I find it much easier to play flats than sharps, especially when there are more of them (e.g. 6 flats are easier for me than even 4 sharps). I asked my children which is easier and it's a mixed bag (some prefer flats some prefer sharps), so if the reason that they gave for changing keys was because it's easier to play sharps, I would suspect that the person who played them has a preference for sharps.

If you can find the published news article and share it here I would be interested in reading it.

[rmrichesjr]

...

If you can find the published news article and share it here I would be interested in reading it.

I searched around https://www.thechurchnews.com/ but have not (yet) found anything useful. The by-date filtering appears to move only a month at a time, so clicking all the way back to ~1985 might wear out a mouse's button switch.

Putting something like the following into a general search engine might be more productive:

• site:www.thechurchnews.com transposed hymns 1985

[russellhltn]

The by-date filtering appears to move only a month at a time, so clicking all the way back to ~1985 might wear out a mouse's button switch.

That's true if you use the calendar tool, but you can enter the date directly in the text box. Just note that the format is dd-mm-yyyy

But that's not going to help much. Doing a search on "Hymns" doesn't turn up anything until 1989.

[rmrichesjr]

That's true if you use the calendar tool, but you can enter the date directly in the text box. Just note that the format is dd-mm-yyyy

Oh, it allows hyphens. I had tried typing slashes into the text box, but it did not allow slashes, so I had figured it allowed only digits.