We’ve selected the carols and Christmas hymns we’ll be singing for Lessons & Carols at our church on December 31st. Most of these will be played on the pipe organ and I’ll be accompanying on my double-strung wire harp.

The collection this year will be: (from the Episcopal Hymnal 1982)

• Once in Royal David’s City – 102
• Creator of the Stars of Night – 60
• Hark! the glad sound! the Savior comes – 72
• Rejoice! Rejoice, believers – 68
• Lo, how a rose e’er blooming – 81
• O, little town of Bethlehem – 79
• Away in a manger – 101
• What child is this – 115
• While shepherds watched their flocks by night – 95
• Angels we have heard on high – 96
• We three kings – 128
• O come, all ye faithful – 83
• Go tell it on the mountain – 99

Double-strung wire harp

Playing them from the hymnal can be a little distracting, if you’re not used to ignoring the four-part harmony and just concentrating on the soprano line to learn the melody. Also keep in mind that the hymnal arrangements are designed for congregational singing but might not go so well for instruments (like wire harps).

A few of these are available in Sylvia Woods’ Christmas harp book. I just play the simpler arrangements, since wire harps have richer overtones than nylon-strung harps and ring on much longer. I also play fewer chords than suggested and stick to thirds and single note melodies and counterpoint accompaniment, when possible.

Since I have a full set of Truitt sharping levers on both sides, I can deal with accidental notes without having to flip a lever in midstream. Set the lever to the raised sharp position on one side, leave it off on the other and then just remember to play that # that comes up in the middle of your piece on one side and go right back to the natural note on the the other.

The double-strung wire harp also has a very echoing quality, so that if the strings are slightly detuned from one another, about one or two cents, they shimmer. If you play the same melody on each side of the harp, but just slightly delayed so that one hand leads the melody ahead of the other, the shimmering is especially beautiful. But be careful not to overdo it!

Lastly, playing a single clear outline of the melody on one rank (or side) of the harp, followed by a clear counterpoint on the other side (can be an improvised descant), is a very effective way of presenting Christmas hymns and carols!

Almost every Sunday, unless husband George has to be away (substituting at another church, playing the carillon for Convocation or Commencement at either of his two colleges), he’s playing the historic pipe organ at our church. Preludes, postludes and hymns.

With, of course, wire harp accompaniment!

Intricately painted organ pipes were once common in 19th century Vermont. Yes, these do speak, they are not just for looks!

If you happen to have a spouse, friend or otherwise happily willing organist in your church, you can play wire harp accompaniment on Sunday mornings to hymns.

Here’s how.

Let the organist lead. The congregation will enjoy (hopefully!) singing their favorite hymns. Check the key of the hymn in your hymnal at some point during the service and set your blades or levers in advance if you have them.

When the organist plays the first line of the hymn through, don’t accompany right away. You’ll join with the congregation. Note what register the organ is at: if there’s a lot of 8′ and 16′ Diapason, you’ll probably want to be at top most octaves of your harp (A5 to A4 strings). If the opposite, a lot of 2′ or 4′ flutes, let’s say, then switch. Go down to the lower end of your instrument: roughly E4 to E3. Please note these are approximations and are what I’ve found work on my harps; your mileage may vary. Experiment to see what is best for your acoustic environment, the voice of your harp and of course, how well your harp pairs up with the organ in your church. Like harps, pipe organs have their own unique voices too!

So having got that out of the way, what are you going to be playing? Answer is, it depends. Sometimes you’ll need to improvise a descant. Let your strings ring and sing. Othertimes, a sweeping gliss… the stereotypical harp sound people that people always think of when you say the word (congregations love these but don’t overdo them!).

Or sometimes folks just don’t know the tune very well and you need to help them (and your organist out). Rhythm harp is the answer! I actually sit right in back of husband George where I can watch his feet on the pedalboard – I do play organ some and fill in on the days when he’s away – and I’ll play a counter rhythm, fast and light on my harp. Triplets, Irish style, one-two-three, one-two-three on top of an otherwise duple meter can help bring a draggy hymn to life. It will also help get them back on track and singing again. Once they’re on board, some syncopated, jazzy rhythms, off beats here and there will keep them going. Generally people aren’t aware that you’re helping them, they’re just a bit more confident with the pulse of an unfamiliar hymn that they’re still learning.

There is a lot more to this subject, but this should help you get started. I will post more on this topic. Be sure to subscribe and check back often!

Just in time for Easter, I’ve completed compiling a new collection of Polish language hymns from the Polish American Liturgical Center at Orchard Lake, Michigan. There are 22 hymns in this pdf document, along with an index and English translations of the titles.

I had mine printed and spiral bound at UPS Store, with a clear plastic cover.

The hymn melody lines are not too complex for a wire-strung harp’s complex overtones and at the same time should sound interesting on any nylon- or gut-strung harp.

Feel free to fill in with ornaments and melismas as you see fit!

J

The grey days of Lent are here and it’s time to have some appropriate music to play on our harps that reflect that somber essence of this season in the liturgical calendar.

Polish hymnody offers a wealth of melodies and texts suitable to the mood. I’ve collected a number of them, again from the Polish American Liturgical Center at Orchard Lake, Michigan.

Here is the cover I designed for my spiral bound book. I had UPS Store print one copy for me so I could have it on my music stand on Sunday mornings. Paper is a lot easier to read than screens and it doesn’t dim and then go to sleep at the worst moment!

A page from my collection. Click to download the full size pdf.

I didn’t translate all of the hymn text – it’s pretty grim – but I did translate the titles and made my own table of contents.

Below you can get the idea of all the hymns I collected. I did the same thing for my Advent book, three Christmas volumes, general use Polish hymns and my upcoming Easter collection (yet to be printed) – creating a translated table of contents at the front, right after the designed and decorated cover. All have a clear plastic cover to prevent wear and tear.

Polish hymns table of contents and translations

By the way, the complete collections are downloadable here. Just visit my Books & Websites section and scroll down to Polish Hymns Collection.

These hymns tunes are fairly easy to play on a wire-strung harp. They make excellent Communion pieces and you can also (if you’re comfortable with this) rearrange them at sight to build a service prelude on them. Having two wire harps that allow me to play chromatics gives me some extra flexibility but if your instrument doesn’t offer this, just stay in a diatonic key and work with what you have. Don’t worry about missing that one occasional sharp note called for in the sheet music… just leave it out. It will still sound nice.

And that’s what we really need to do for our congregation (and ourselves). Prayer, not performance.

More Ukrainian and Polish sheet music in upcoming posts – be sure to check back often!

King David plays his kinnor

In my continuing research for interesting liturgical music to play on my three Irish wire-strung harps in church, I recently came across the work of the late French archaeomusicologist and organist Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura (1912-2000). She is best known for her book La Musique de la Bible revélée (1st ed.: 1976), a study in which the cantillation marks of the Hebrew Scriptures could be successfully transcribed to modern music notation. These marks, known as te’amim, are melodic accents in the original Hebrew script.

Her system is complex and her first book, written in French, was later translated into English (1991) but is quite pricey, even on the used book market. For those that are interested, more in-depth coverage is available here, including a pdf download of the English translation.

Haïk-Vantoura’s reading of Psalm 150: Hebraic cantillation marks become modern music notes.

French harpist Esther Lamandier recorded her music score interpretations of the Biblical manuscripts. It’s important to be aware that’s been some criticism of Haïk-Vantoura’s concept by other musicologists, the most significant point being that it is essentially a hypothesis that uses Western music theory and structures to build a body of playable and singable sheet music, which may or may not be what was actually done in King David’s time.

Still, authenticity debates aside, there may well be a grain (or two or three) of historical accuracy in Haïk-Vantoura’s work and efforts like hers can invite others to investigate the Hebrew Scriptures more in depth to find out what King David’s psalms may have really sounded like.

Also it’s worth noting that he most likely didn’t play an Irish wire-strung harp! Or any kind of harp that we’re familiar with in the Western world today (think orchestra pedal harps, today’s popular Celtic harps, etc.). More likely he played a kinnor, possibly one that looked like this (Lyre of Har Meggido) or maybe this (Kinnor David, House of Harrari, Jerusalem). Certainly he wasn’t reading sheet music as we know it! (The modern five stave notation system with clefs and other symbols is a comparatively recent invention.)

King David plays his lyre or kinnor. Note he does not have a music stand!

The Psalm scores are interesting nonetheless, because you can try them out on your harp and imagine for yourself, if all or part of this is what King David actually did play on his lyre (kinnor), you can now recreate that worship experience for yourself and others.

The sheet music is downloadable here. There are also other books of the Hebrew Bible that are available in sheet music form at this Dropbox link. All are handwritten scores by Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura and as such are not typeset. They are quite legible however.

Since the kinnor has about 10 strings (give or take, but it’s generally in that range), you can play just the melody as written on your harp, or you can choose to harmonize it or even add Baroque ornaments to it, if you are playing one of the Psalms as an instrumental piece with no singing. They may or may not adhere to strict Western notions of tempo and rhythm; she doesn’t appear to have indicated metronome markings either. It might also be the case that these pieces speed up and slow down considerably, similar to speech. This, of course, is all speculation on my part.

However, they are an interesting doorway to Bible study!

King David Illustration 257572988 © Maryna Kriuchenko | Dreamstime.com (Ukrainian artist)

Photo of King David Painting 92080543 / King David © Hannah Babiak | Dreamstime.com

Currently I’m working on arranging selected hymns from the Episcopal Hymnals of 1916, 1940 and 1982 for my large Triplett Luna harp, for Sunday morning service use.

Some hymns are in keys which are not friendly to my aging harp, which has been in the key of F (one flat) for as long as I can remember. This harp does not take kindly to having its E and A strings detuned so that one can play something in the keys of Bb, Eb, etc. It usually will “retune” itself in a few minutes, i.e., pulling its strings back up to where they were, which is why I leave it in F and use the sharping blades to put it in keys like G, D, etc.

I’ve been using MuseScore 3 to typeset and transpose selected hymns and at present I have a large collection of them in a three-ring binder.

I’ve also been working on Morning, Compline and Evensong hymns. I’ve found all of these make very beautiful prelude and postlude pieces for introducing and closing services at St. Thomas.

Triplett Luna Harp at St. Thomas Episcopal, Brandon, VT

Hymnal image source: Pbritti, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons