Not losing my ticket

It has been, Dear Readers, a wonderful concert, although not without stress in getting there and being there.

I had left my ticket, attached by a fridge magnet (an amusing sheep, if you are interested), on the fridge since it arrived. But today, in case I was detained outside all day, and then had to rush off to the Stables, I thought it better to transfer it to my wallet.

But you know how it is with wallets and concert tickets. The tickets kind of stick out a bit at the top. And I was becoming worried that I might pay for something with a £5 note, dislodge the ticket, drop it and not notice.

So I kept taking the ticket out of the wallet every few minutes to check it was still there. But then I worried that I might only have the address slip part, and not the actual ticket. So I pulled the ticket off the address slip part, and put the address slip in the bin.

But I was concerned that I might have put the wrong part in the bin. So I checked the ticket in my wallet. It was definitely still there, and definitely still the ticket part. So I relaxed.

Until I wondered whether I had the right day. Sure, the ticket said Friday 11 May. I knew it was Friday. And the PC sad it was 11 May. But was I sure the PC was right? Maybe I had a ticket for the wrong year. And so I asked Eileen what day it was, what month, what date and what year. They all checked out. I had the right ticket.

But had I mis-remembered the date, I wondered? So I took the ticket out of the wallet and checked the date again. It was the right date. I put it back. Then put the wallet in my pocket. But I worried that it might have fallen out as I put the wallet back in my pocket. So I took the wallet out and checked. Put it back, and worried again.

I set off for Wavendon three hours early, in case I had a fake ticket. They assured me it was fine, but I wasn't coming in just yet no matter how safe it made me feel. So I put the ticket in my wallet, put my wallet in my pocket, and drove back to Husborne Crawley. They don't have real ale at the Stables, so I was not worried about drinking later on - driving was fine.

I found Eileen, told her that how worried I was about losing my ticket. She suggested putting it in my wallet, and then putting the wallet in my pocket. I explained that was what I had done. She said that was all right then - but I explained that was my point - how could I be sure it was still there and hadn't dropped out? She suggested that was unlikely, but in all honesty I couldn't be sure without opening my wallet and thereby collapsing the wave-function of ticket location. I checked it out. It was there. I put it back in the wallet, the wallet back in the pocket. Eileen watched me do it - promised me it was definitely there.

I walked round the corner, and it occurred to me that she could have been lying.

So I put the ticket in a glove, and put the glove on my hand. Realised that I could easily lose the glove, so put a wicket-keeping glove on over the ordinary glove. Taped the keepers' glove round the wrist, so nothing could possibly fall out.

Then I realised I wasn't sure I had rightly remembered putting the ticket in the glove.

In the end, I got to the concert. It was brilliant. But I did not take any notes of the lengths of the songs, or consult my notes as to precisely when a Mellotron noise was required for perfect accuracy, to check that G2 were a valid and accurate Genesis tribute band. Instead I was worrying too much that an any minute the Wavendon Ticket Police would realise that I was there with a false ticket, that I was the only person at a sold-out gig sitting in a seat that was fortunately vacant (and even more fortunately had the same number as the fake ticket I had accidentally purchased) and they would drag me off and I would miss the rest of the concert.

So as I say, it was a marvellous concert. G2 are a wonderful band.

I just wish I had enjoyed the day more.

A Definitive Genesis Experience

Such excitement, Dear Readers!

Tomorrow I and Eileen are going to watch G2 Definitive Genesis perform at Wavendon Stables.

G2 are a group who work very hard at what is, after all, very complex music. They practice diligently (I know for a fact that keyboard practice was going on till late last night in the G2 household) and tomorrow they are going to be doing something which Genesis never did.  Playing the whole of A Trick of the Tale and Foxtrot live. These men are lovers of progressive music, and travel the country for the joy it brings to our ageing ears.

In recognition of their dedication and workmanship, I shall be timing the songs carefully to ensure they are authentic and accurate representations of the originals. Obviously it would be fairly easy to get a whole song the right length and so, to ensure there is no nasty cheating by speeding up or slowing down at the end, I will be taping the individual parts. I will be making sure this is particularly the case during the instrumental in Mad, Mad Moon. I played this once myself and it was note perfect. Well, to be exact I coded it into my computer and played it through a MIDI interface into my electronic keyboard. Which is, on a functional basis, exactly the same thing.

I do however have one cloud on my horizon. I referred this afternoon to Eileen and myself going on a "date". Once she had recovered from that unexpected outbreak of retching and choking, this led to me being hit with her cricket bat of doom. Eileen would like to make it very clear that she separately bought her own ticket, has a seat at the other end of the Stables and will be travelling independently. She has also declared that I will get another thump with the cricket bat if I encroach within the 30 yard "personal exclusion zone" she has declared around herself.

Which isn't that romantic, I agree. But it's still better than some dates I have been on in the past.

Ultimate Worship Song Structure

Thanks to all who commented on Performing vs Worshipping.

For the avoidance of doubt, and to show the fine structure of an act of communal worship, I've published this guide to the ultimate worship song arrangement. Clearly not all songs reach this point of perfection - but it's the ideal we aspire to.

By adopting this framework, you too can give that "spontaneous" feel to leading worship, without having a spontaneous bone in your body!

---

Gentle Intro, Building Up

     Verse 1

     Chorus

     Verse 2

     Chorus

          Bridge

          Chorus

     Verse 3

     Chorus

     Back to Verse 1

     Chorus

          Chorus - Just the Women

          Chorus - Just the Men

          Chorus - Just the People aged 11-17

          Chorus - Just the Children and Sunday School Teachers

          Chorus - Just the tone deaf people and those who like shouting

               Primal Screaming

 

          Back to Verse 1

          Chorus

          Bridge

          Chorus

            Modulate up one note into new, "exciting", key
    
             Chorus

             Bridge

     Chorus

     Repeat 2nd Half of Chorus

     Repeat last line of Chorus

     Repeat last word of Chorus

     Repeat final syllable of last word of Chorus

     Repeat last consonant of final syllable of last word of Chorus

Fade out

Finish on the Major 3rd chord, leaving an air of expectation

Bottle it and resolve it to the tonic.

Sound of small children dropping their shakers and tambourines on the floor

Little drum roll to finish it.

Final guitar skank to show it's definitely finished

Final, assertive Bass Guitar note to show it's all over.

Accidental "plink" on a couple of keys as the keyboard player looks round to see if anyone else fancies finishing it.

Sound of a 3-year-old turning the "rainmaker" over for the 45th time

Performing vs Worshipping

It's one of those great spiritual dichotomies, embedded in our psyches since the first human being unexpectedly evolved a soul and the ability to hold an Appalachian Mountain Zither. Is music in worship to be performed, or congegational?

It came up particularly last night at the Music Group meeting. I always try to meet up with the "MP3 replacement Opportunities" on the first Friday of the month. First we deal with all the tedious stuff - admin, spiritual concerns, opportunities to expand and explore the use of music in enhancing worship. And then I like to get on with the important stuff, i.e. the rest of my life, leaving them to make whatever row they like in a spiritual manner.

Anyway, they've got a new "piece". And they know I hate it when music groups have "pieces". I consider it showing off. I always say to them that they have to be careful to ensure they're enabling others to worship, not merely performing. Consider whether playing a piece that is too difficult for others to join in, fits into a worship setting.

And they say to me, I never tell Elzpeth that when she's doing a liturgical dance - never encourage others to join in with the dancing. To which I generally point out that Elzpeth is a large-boned young woman with poor co-ordination skills.  I do feel that the best way to use her dancing skills in a worship setting is to keep the other Beaker Folk behind the safety barriers. Or, ideally, in another Moot House.

Anyway, this new "piece" is another experimental work. All three musicians wear identical Guy Fawkes masks during "Threeness and Ivory". It's a work that consists of Izmir hitting a lump of corrugated iron with a frozen chicken, while Godfreya shouts the Athanasian Creed in Serbo-Croat. They say the bashing noises represent the woes laid up for whoever won't believe the words of gentle Athanasius, while the "bridge", where the three performers swap instruments while running in circles, is meant to represent perestroika. I say don't they mean perichoresis? And they say they know what they mean.

You see, for me that's probably a bit tricky for the congregation to join in with. Most of them have fairly poor Serbo-Croat to start with, and it's not the easiest tune to pick up. And of course it's forty-five minutes long. But Godfreya says they're supposed to worship by listening and watching. That I have retained an overly activist view of worship thanks to my Extreemly Primitive Methodist upbringing. That the congregation can know God's presence through the contrasting experiences of the shouting, the banging, and the flying shards of chicken.

And maybe she's got a point. I did suggest that they could maybe do with a couple more weeks of rehearsal, but Izmir says they're running short of frozen chickens.

Orik, the guitarist, was still trying to find E minor when I left. You know, I'm not a vegetarian - and I know that in this fallen world there will always be pain. But I can't stand to see music suffering like that.

Upsetting the Music Group

So it turns out I've upset the Beaker Quire.

I mean - all I did was refer to them as "MP3 Replacement Candidates." I mean, what?

On the Music Group Being in the Image of the Triune God

I had a bit of a rant the other day about "proper" versus quire music. And you may not be aware, but in my salad days I used to be the cello-player in a folk/rock/worship group called "Elijah's Babies". Which is why I tend to favour the Mellstockian in all things music-worshipful, I guess.

I've always thought there's something rather wonderful about being in a band as opposed to being a soloist. And we players of bass instruments notice it most of course. It's like an image of the trinitarian model of God - the way that the different instrumentalists have to offer up their different roles to God, each other and the congregation. There's something of an epiphany about the way the keyboard player has actually to look up; to recognise s/he is in a group; to stop playing all the lead notes during verses, recognise there's a vocalist to do that and a bass player to do the bottom line, and a guitarist to fill in the mid-range - and just play the stuff that makes the whole thing just right. The rhythm section keeping the show on the road, the bass/cello/serpent/left hand of the keyboard player adding the depth that brings us to the profoundest place of worship - each playing their part, and then yielding to the other in their turn.

I remember one day, we were playing the Cropredy Folk Worship Gathering, and we were scheduled to play the inevitable "Be thou my Vision (Celtic Style)". We'd got it just right in practice. Started quietly - just tabor, voices and a bit of cello for the bass (a lovely, stabbing, short stroke). Then building, bringing in the other instruments until the last verse when, bringing the song to a crescendo, we threw the kitchen sink at it. Quite literally, actually. Throwing a kitchen sink at a dinner gong has a lovely effect, I always feel - both exotic and yet homely at the same time.

So we were ready. Me and Bodhran Bill looking intently at each other, ready to move the audience - I mean, congregation - with this most evocative of songs. We waited, as we always did, for that moment of perfect peace when the anticipation of the gathered worshippers created a still point - a thin place, if you will, into which the music would be breathed into that first chord.

Of course, you know what happened,  don't you? Terrified by an extended period of time (ie about 30s) in which he had nothing to contribute, Ivor the Ivories launched into a traditional church-style introduction. At the wrong speed. In the wrong key. In the wrong key signature.

We can laugh about it now, of course. But in fact at the time it was a great learning experience. In particular, I learned it's very hard to remove Irish Harps from round the necks of organists without taking their ears off. Terrible, sticky-out ears, keyboard players.

Smug, snobbish, irrelevant

Thanks to those doughty folk at the Thomas Hardy Association, I have belatedly had my attention drawn to the patronising, smug, snobbish views encapsulated in this review of the London Gallery Quire.

I have no idea what the London Gallery Quire sounds like. Actually, that's not true - I could probably have a pretty good guess. What I mean is, I've never actually heard them, though I do plan to if I'm in Town on the right day. I suspect they're pretty good.

But let us consider the situation when the West Gallery quires were being pushed out of existence. A group of random performers - some good, some bad, some quite possibly dreadful, would get together to praise God on an assortment of whatever instruments they could play. If they were the purists of Thomas Hardy's Mellstock dream-world, they would have stuck to "strings forever". If they were of the less fastidious variety of quire, they might include those tooting clarionets, the marvellous deep note of the serpent, the outlandish weirdness of the "vamping horn" even.

Unlike Michael White's metropolitan, comfy view of the quires being replaced, throughout the land, by the surpliced choristers of cathedral choir schools - it didn't happen. In Hardy's short novel, Under the Greenwood Tree, it's just the organist (whose bodice the vicar is hoping, at some point in the future, to be ripping). In many places it was just the schoolmistress and the kids from the Sunday School. What was achieved was not better music - it was more controlled music. Instead of having to deal with a bunch of semi-educated rustics, the vicar merely had to instruct the schoolmistress or his daughter or whoever in the hymns he would prefer this week.

It was all part of that generally annoying tendency the vicars of the 19th Century had towards tidying everything up. With a new-found professionalism, they had a new-found interest in interfering in everything. So the quires had to be cleared away. The wild rituals of the Maypole were transformed into prim, chaste, ordered, country dancing - with ribbons and, again, the adults replaced with children. Running off into the woods on St John's Eve was very much last century.

They knocked down ancient churches and rebuilt them in Gothic. Installed pitch-pine pews that nobody can get rid of today without some busybody chaining themselves to them. Wrote some of the worst hymns anyone could ever sing. Whereas the 18th Century was "the church's finest moment in this country" - it was the time of revival, of the Wesleys, Isaac Watts and George Whitefield. We have had nothing to compare with it since, no raw shock of the Gospel proclaimed again nationwide, coming to hundreds of thousands who had never heard - just tinkering and attempted re-invention of a tradition that never existed; a withdrawal of the Gospel to the Telegraph readers, as they tried to make it as tame, tidy and clean as a bunch of nice choristers in white surplices.

And by taking away the interest in the worship from a large collective of the community to themselves and those they could most directly control, they divorced religion from the people and made themselves the only ones who cared whether it happened or not. And in giving organists all that power, where once it would have been a bunch of yokels who would argue even amongst themselves - did they know what monsters, in so many cases, they created?*

So it is with joy that I hear a music group playing in a church. Because the spirit of the Mellstock Quire does not live on only as a curiosity. Wherever two or three decide that what the church really needs is a band made of two out-of-tune guitars and a couple of ocarinas; wherever someone is trying to find the best way to combine the sounds of an English Horn and a ukulel; whenever somebody puts a 200W PA in and realises they've run out of sockets for all the leads; the spirit of Mellstock is kicking back. Because "viols and their like" are not "indeed long gone from Anglican worship". Stick a strap on a bass viol, hang it round your neck and add a pickup or two and it's a bass guitar.

It took them 160 years, Parson Maybold, but you've failed. The Mellstock Quire is back - you just wouldn't recognise it.

* Any organists reading, don't worry - obviously I don't mean you. It's those others...

Criminal Records

Need to make this clear.

It's may be against common decency, musical sensibility and the generally-held sense of what is right and wrong.

But playing "Abba, Father" is not strictly speaking against the law. Please can you release Solweigh immediately - that citizen's arrest is invalid.

The Girl on the Platform Smile - the Uke Chords

I have had such an evening!

Earlier on, I found the chords to the song on "The Girl on the platform Smile". I have been playing it ever since. I suggested to Eileen that we could re-create the scene, but I'm afraid she hit me with the ukulele.

The Worst Xmas Song?

Just about to nip out for the Grand Wassail but unexpectedly hearing Cyndi Lauper's Early Christmas Morning on the Community Muzak makes me wonder if this the worst Christmas song ever. I reckon if it's not, at the least Spaceman Came Travelling has a close competitor. FWIW I'd put Fairytale of New York as the best (I sense you all step back in amazement) and, controversially perhaps, maybe Frankie's Power of Love a distant second.

I think Cyndi's effort has all the classic hallmarks of a Bad Christmas Record. Simplistic tune, pointless bells, mention of children dancing (not the little children of Stonehenge, sadly) and pointless and annoying whooping. Some doggerel so bad it nearly shades into gibberish - and then it ends with this little gem:

All around and far off places
Angels waken smiling faces
Wrapping us with love and graces
Early christmas morning

What a Messiaen

There's nothing quite like a nice piece of music from scratch. Handel's Messiah in an afternoon, with the performance in the evening - brilliant fun. Not always a performance of the highest quality, but still worth listening to and a joyous time. Or likewise Stainer's Crucifixion. I know Hnaef regards it as a bad example of the sort of music that came out of the "Common" scene, but still - a bit of light practice and any choir with moderate voices can make a go of it.

So I was enthusiastic when they approached me for today's "Berlioz from Scratch". But to be honest, the Requiem in a Day was a bit of a disaster. The brass bands in particular - very badly-timed. Maybe we'll go for a performance of some nice Taizé next time.

Different for Girls

I heard someone complaining last night about worship that had been sung at a service he attended. The song sounds like (for he was finding it difficult to speak properly, this one.

And my complainant was saying no wonder no men go to church. And I guess he had a point. Although, to be fair, this song isn't sung at every service of every church in the world. It's not among the manly and solid lyrics of the Redemption Hymnal, for example, and so my source would be safe at Drayton's church. Safe, that is, from silly music if not from six-hour sermons.

I'm pretty sure that I recognise the source that this song is based on - "Kiss me with your mouth", by - I believe - Stephen "Tin Tin" Duffy. It seems odd that modern chorus-writers are going back to New Romantic songs for their inspiration. But still. I wish Stephen well in his new movie career, although he looks a bit pudgier than I remember him.

In Defence of Worship Leaders

I've been thinking about our rather ambivalent attitude to worship leaders. And coming to the conclusion that I'm ambivalent about our ambivalent attitudes.

Just reflecting, it seems to me that some people can have a hero-worshipping view of worship leaders. Which I accept is wrong. Because if you're hero-worshipping a worship leader, whose worship is the worship-leader leading?

But I shall leave that to one side and concentrate more on the other aspect of the conundrum. That's the one where worship leaders are criticised for having a pop-star attitude, or effectively criticised for enjoying leading worship - if they're musicians, for performing, and if they're not, for getting a power-trip from leading.

And it strikes me as a little unfair, that. Well, actually it strikes me as a lot unfair. You don't get people referring to the pastoral visitors and saying "well of course they'd do that - after all, they get a being needed buzz out of it. And they like visiting people." You don't hear "well, of course the flowers are well-arranged. They don't do it for God - they like arranging flowers. They get a real kick out of a nice setting of Michaelmas Daisies." You don't hear people complaining about the people that made the cakes for the cake stall, that they like baking.

And maybe it's because the worship leaders are so obviously out the front. But it strikes me that they get more of that than anyone. And then it strikes me that no-one works as hard for their rewards - if any. A singing worship-leader will spend time practicing their singing. And the guitar-playing worship leader will spend their time wearing callouses on the fingertips of their left hands, relentlessly playing the same four chords, and holding chord charts upside down wondering how to do which diminished seventh. While an organ-playing worship leader will typically spend a lot of time under the machine, up to their knees in dust and spiders wondering why the contra-trombone's a bit low this morning.

And if the worship leader is part of the worship group, it gets worse. All those evenings spent practicing segues between songs. All that time explaining to the guitarist that it's written "segue", not "segway". All those count-ins and intros to practice. All that time spent explaining to the bass player that if you hold up one finger it means "back to verse one", whereas two fingers means "back to verse two". And all that comforting the bass player and telling him that really, it's OK - he can count that high.

So you can see that, while you may think it's a breeze being a worship leader and all about getting the praise of men and women - it's not. It's about pain and sacrifice and prayer - about having the humility to lead others into a place of worship and trying to step back. Of being a performer, sure - but one who, when you step back from the performance, will so often not allow oneself to ask the question all performers want to ask - "was I any good?"

So be kind to your worship-leaders. They're just ordinary people. Thank you very much, Husborne Crawley. You've been great. Good night.

R.E.M. ember

My heartlessness regarding the splitting up of REM has caused a storm of correspondence. And once again Mrs Trellis of North Hamptonshire writes:

Dear Rowan 

 I am not happy about REM. Why did God allow this to happen? 

Yours sincerely, Mrs Trellis.

Well Mrs Trellis - the theories about how and why God allows terrible things to happen are called "theodicy". Sometimes we suffer excruciatingly painful and inexplicable things for a long time. And then they break up, and things get better again.

If anyone needs support in their REM withdrawal, they can call our premium rate phone number, and Burton will tell them how miserable he is before accusing them of being fascists. It's not quite the same as the real thing but it makes me richer so I'm not complaining.

If you believe they put a man on the moon, you're almost certainly right.

REM Split - The Tributes

"I remember when Michael (Stipe) said to me, how are we going to do something different? And I said look at Mary and me - think of how we are - how happy and - to coin a word - shiny. And maybe get in that girl from "Rock Lobster". The rest is history." - Lord Jeffrey Archer

"97.4 MHz on FM. Also available on Medium wave." - Kenneth

"Until Michael (Stipe) and I got involved, the Middle East was a place of violence, suspicion and unease. Thank goodness the two of us - and, at times, Pope John Paul II, God and Barack (Obama) took some action." - Tony Blair

"I don't believe it" - the Man in the Moon

"I knew it was going to happen. I just haven't mentioned it till now." - Uri Geller

"It was a difficult chance. The ball was running away from the goal. And Frank (Lampard) was too old to trust in him." - Fernando Torres

"REM breaking up's not the end of the world as we know it. At least, not till October." - Harold Camping

"As Lala Ward told Michael Stipe, in an unfunny and unconvincing anecdote, losing your religion is quite a good idea all round." - Richard Dawkins, in The Money Delusion


"They made a billion billion billion billion pounds...." [collapses in numerical delirium] - Prof Brian Cox

Metrical Psalms are back

If I may quote the Master for a moment:

On afternoons of drowsy calm
We stood in the panelled pew,
Singing one-voiced a Tate-and-Brady psalm
To the tune of "Cambridge New."

Reinstated West Gallery, Stinsford Church

Let's leave aside the whole question of why you'd want to sing "Cambridge New", which has a nice fugue effect, one-voiced -  and instead consider that what Thomas Hardy (for it is he) is reflecting fondly on is the singing of a metrical psalm to a set tune.

With the advent of the Victorian hymn-writing plague, singing the old psalms the old way went away. But you can't keep a decent tradition down. So the church musician and serpent-player Kathryn Rose (aka blogger "The Artsy Honker") has set up Psalter Commons. You can find psalms, contribute (old, out of copyright) ones - or write your own.

So come on, get down there and let's re-invent a genuine tradition!

This ain't a love song

I'm feeling misunderstood.

I was off down the White Horse for a quick pint. As you do. Although in Hnaef''s absence this was more in hope than expectation of a decent chat. But at least, I thought, I might have a nice pint, sit out the front, and watch the world go by - or watch people driving in and out the car park. The Archdruid has been glued to the telly most of the day, but I've not been interested. Let's face it, cricket's a load of people in white trying to hit a piece of cork with a stick, when you boil it all down to essentials.

So I was strolling across the lawn just now, and passed Eileen as she was coming down to her "5152 Awareness Group". The official start time of the group was "just as soon as the Indians are all out". And I was playing the music of a modern pop group on my phone. I know Eileen doesn't like this habit - but I was  on my own, and out in the open, and unlikely to annoy anyone else.

"Hello, Keith, where you off to?" asked the Archdruid, "And what's that row you're playing?"

I made the mistake of answering the second question first. And the answer to the second question was "Scouting for Girls". Except that Eileen thought that was the answer to the first, if you see what I mean. And explained that I couldn't call them "girls", which is disparaging - nor "ladies" - but must say "women". And "scouting" was not the sort of word she expected in this context.

I've now got  a Sexism Awareness course lined up, and have had to agree that I am actually going to the pub on an "endeavour to meet an unspecified person - probably of the opposite sex - with an aim to developing a meaningful relationship." Which is all very well, but all I wanted was a pint.

The curse of the violinist

Look, OK. I'm really sorry about Elmeet.

She says she's a folk violinist, dedicated to adding a new dimension of music and culture to our normal goings on. At any given moment - a sunrise, a sunset, a new moon, the first lightning bolt of a new-minted thunderstorm - she's there, giving it "that" with a rapt look and an overdose of rosin.

Yes, I know she's kind of traditional. And yes, I know she claims to be adding authentic folksy ambience to the who Beaker business.

But if I hear one more cat-scrape scream from that fiddle during Pouring Out of Beakers, I'm throwing her in the brook. I'm jumpy enough at this time of the morning as it is, without artificial assistance.

Dances and Didgeridoos

I am intrigued to read the blogpost at The Artsy Honker in which Kathryn Rose remarks that the problem of most traditional hymns is the over-slow way in which they are played. They should be livelier, she says.

Here at the Beaker Folk, I would disagree. From our perspective the main problem with traditional hymns is that they often have a great deal of theology in them. And as Nestorius and Arius discovered, the trouble with theology is that there is so often a winner and a loser. Consider Charles Wesley's "Hark how all the Welkin Rings":

"Veiled in flesh, the Godhead see,
hail the incarnate Deity!
pleased as man with men to appear,
Jesus, our Emmanuel here!"

The accusations and rows can be heard hours later, as the side that claims Charles Wesley was just being poetic throws flower-pots at the side that claims he was a thoroughgoing Docetist. Not to mention the suggestions that "man with men" could perhaps be re-written in these egalitarian times. Whereas if Charlie W. had written "I want to be out of my depth in your love", both sides could have wandered off feeling slightly queasy but otherwise completely safe from fighting.

I have a couple of suggestions to get round this.

One is to use metrical psalms exclusively. The theological arguers can't argue, because the words come - more or less - straight from the Bible. Even the Wee Frees couldn't get too upset. OK, you get the odd line that is utterly incomprehensible - but then sometimes you get something as sweet as the 18th from Sternhold and Hopkins:

3  The fiery darts and thunderbolts
       disperse them here and there;
    And with his frequent lightnings he
       doth put them in great fear.

The other great advantage of these is that you can pretty well sing them all to the same three or four tunes -the 18th in this instance being beautifully suited to the tune we normally sing "The Lord's my Shepherd" to. And that cuts down on music group practice time.

There is another way to draw attention away from the theology of the hymns, and the two are not mutually exclusive. Introduce didgeridoos. The blog title "The Artsy Honker" is, I guess, a reference to Kathryn Rose's ability with that doyen of the West Gallery repertoire, the serpent. And the serpent itself, like its successor the ophicleide, is likely to draw some attention. But just imagine - the opening few lines of "Trust and Obey". People of right attitudes and theological sensitivity are about to rush the organ and drag the organist out of the church to stop him. But then - what's that? Surely somebody has written a didgeridoo part into the hymn. All discussion of theology and musical validity is forgotten, as everyone gazes open-mouthed at the didgeridoo player.

Got to be worth a try, at least. I reckon.

Retro Choruses Week - "Did you feel the mountains tremble?"

You may or may not have felt the mountains tremble. But you can hear the local dogs whimper, as all the streams flow as one river and the congregation attempt to hit that top note.

Quite a nice chorus in some ways. But pitched at the modern-day common pitch - the key of "what will sound good played on the CD in the car". Which means it's pitched too high for the average human being to sing. In fact, some of the top notes may even be beyond the normal human range of hearing. Not that it will stop the music group trying, no matter how tight the jeans they have to pull on, come Sunday morning.

And what kind of dance would you dance on injustice? Some kind of a polka, perhaps?