Quote:
Originally Posted by Backwoods Presbyterian  Do y'all recommend the spilt leaf edition or the "solid" page edition, or does it matter? |
Split-leaf...
Then you can sing different psalms to different tunes. You can sing, for example, Psalm 23 to "Crimond" or "Ballerma" whatever other tune fits with the words. (I'm referring, of course, to the 1650 Scottish Metrical Psalmody, which is the only one I've used outside of our visits to churches in Grand Rapids.) Split-leaf makes it seem less as though one is singing hymns and more as though the tunes are secondary to the psalms themselves, at least IMHO. And that's
good.
Makes everything a lot easier, of course, if you can read music, if you have a precentor, or if the congregation gathers at someone's home or some place for a "psalm-sing" so that we can practice the tunes. (Uh, I play the tunes on my piano at home if someone is unfamiliar with a tune. So an instrument does figure in there!
)
I can't get along with psalters with just words and no music... We have some, but they're for people who grew up with the tunes and a precentor is available.
I just wish that some publisher would make available a more affordable split-leaf psalter, maybe in a good-quality, paperback edition, for start-up congregations like ours. We could then loan out psalters to people who attend regularly but are kind of uncertain about the tunes. As it is now, the psalters that we have are just too expensive to loan out...
Margaret