4 Dec 2012

Psalm 29: getting it right at last?


Some months ago I wrote of my recent effort to come up with a fresh text and tune for Psalm 29. Several weeks later I entered my effort in a Psalm contest sponsored by Church of the Servant in Grand Rapids, Michigan, at the encouragement of Greg Scheer, the congregation's minister of worship. Last month I tested it out at a chapel service at Redeemer in connection with the annual Zylstra Symposium and quickly discovered that it's not especially singable by an ordinary congregation. One of my colleagues went so far as to call it "dreadful." Oh, well. A fine blow to my conceit, that's all. Back to the drawing board.

Accordingly, I have now come up with a fresh tune for the same text, dubbed VOX DOMINI. A printable score can be found here. I believe it is more singable than the first tune, QOL ADONAI, but I suppose there's only one way to find out for certain: try singing it! I may rearrange the latter as a choral piece at some point in the future.

10 comments:

Bob MacDonald said...

I haven't transcribed this one from the te-amim yet - at least not in full, but I found this snippet - maybe it will inspire you

Bob MacDonald said...

whoops - change the ftp to http in the above
http://gxmain.com/bmd/Psalm 29-1.png

David Koyzis said...

Where does it come from? Who composed the music?

Bob MacDonald said...

I am working on doing an English Psalter to these melodies, but first I am transcribing them from the te'amim according to the transcription key deciphered by Suzanne Haik Vantoura in the mid 20th century - see this intro specially the pdf linked from there. As I transcribe, I check my work against hers which I have in handwritten form

Bob MacDonald said...

David, if I get a chance, I will finish it tomorrow - it takes me about 15 minutes a verse to visually check the online edition of the teamim against my Letteris edition and do the transcription.

David Koyzis said...

Are you not replicating the work already done by Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura? How do your renditions differ from hers?

Bob MacDonald said...

I am certainly learning from her work - but she did not transcribe everything and she did not produce a singable version in English - that is my target though I may not achieve it. I have another project starting too and it may supercede the English Psalter - that is an introduction to the Tanakh specifically from the point of view of the theology implied by this music. I have transcribed a number of recent lessons in the Common lectionary and sung parts of them - very moving - e.g. the lament of David on the death of Absalom, featured in the November carnival along with some of your posts.

There's plenty to do to investigate, confirm, and test her thesis as well as to spread the message. If you try reading the music of the signs, you will see that it is not that obvious. The notes may be determined, but the mode, the rhythm and so on are moot. And what does this mean to the average person in a pew? Most of them haven't a clue that its there.

Greg Scheer said...

Tell your colleague that the only thing dreadful is his people skills.

The tune you entered in the contest wasn't dreadful or unsingable. Unusual, perhaps, but I thought it was quite lovely. I'm looking forward to trying out the new one, too!

David Koyzis said...

Thanks for the vote of confidence, Greg. Do let me know what you think of the second tune when you've had a chance to look at it.

Bob MacDonald said...

I like both your tunes - very creative. I wonder if you would get the rhythmic subtlety that you are looking for from a congregation.

I suspect the last line would end up as a dotted note on the first beat rather than the syncopation you have written. Nice though.

I am similarly wondering still if I like that strange augmented mode that SHV has chosen for Psalm 29 - I am not sure what I would have done.