Malotte's Lord's Prayer with Lauran Delancy on solo handbells for the Prelude in church this morning.

The Lord's Prayer for Solo Handbells and Piano from William Wingfield on Vimeo.

PBS Series on J.S. Bach and the Lutheran Legacy

Opening Chorus of J.S. Bach's St. Matthew Passion

The overture and opening chorus of what many consider to be Bach's greatest work.

Video of Third Class on Music in the Church, The 17th Century

Music in the Church, Part III, 17th Century from William Wingfield on Vimeo.

This is the third class on Music in the Church, covering hymnody in the 17th century and focusing on phrase construction, unity and variety of form, the Thirty Year's War, Praetorius, Crüger, and Gerhardt, scales, musical periods, and Orthodoxy and Piety.

Heinrich Schütz: Ich bin eine rufende Stimme

This may help you understand visually how counterpoint and polyphony works. The complexity of the seemingly independent lines combine to form a beautiful harmonic structure. Our world seems like everyone is going off in their own, independent ways. But we are all melodies from the pen of the great Composer, God our Father.

Michael Praetorius: Lux beata Trinitas; Blessed light of the Trinity

Michael Praetorius: Puer natus in Bethlehem, A Child is Born in Bethlehem

Note the period instruments.

History of the Organ (playlist)

These are short trailers for a DVD series on the organ. They do give a taste of the wide range of organ styles and a survey of the origins of the pipe organ. It looks like a beautiful series.

Video of Second Class on Music in the Church, the 16th Century

Music in the Church, Part II from William Wingfield on Vimeo.

The second class in the series was on music during the 16th century. We talked about congregational singing and what tunes make for confident congregational participation, rhyming and metering Psalm texts, setting hymn texts to secular tunes, and syncopation. I played a little jazz rendition of "A Mighty Fortress."

Beethoven, Symphony 7, Allegretto, mvt 2, visual realization

It's very difficult to express in words what goes on in my thoughts when I listen to a  great piece of music. My mind goes back and forth between the macro and micro levels, and simultaneous combinations of levels. That is why, I believe, that great music bears re-hearing over and over again. Each listening experience is different because music that is both complex and unified at the same time can never be comprehended completely.   It may be perceived one time on the surface, the next time in dizzying depth. Yet both ways have the ability to create a powerful response in the listener.

This video seems to me to be very close to the way I listen. I rarely use the left side of my brain when listening to music, analyzing forms, for instance. I follow the trails of melodies, harmonies, rhythms, motives, textures where they lead me and sometimes I pull back and "watch" with my ears the grand dance. I know you will experience this in a different way than I do, but there is also something shared in a work such as this, otherwise we couldn't agree that Beethoven, or this wonderful video is beautiful.

I hope you enjoy this. I would suggest using good headphones. This movement from Beethoven's Seventh Symphony was used in the climactic radio broadcast scene of "The King's Speech." to great effect. I remember hearing it for the first time during the television broadcasts of President Kennedy's funeral procession and the laying in state of his casket in the Capitol rotunda in 1963. It wasn't until several years later when I was at a music camp in Lawrence, Kansas, listening to the recordings of Beethoven's symphonies, that I came across it again. It was such a joy, like finding a long lost friend!

Prayer walking (playlist)

Tomorrow we are beginning a group of people in our congregation that will be prayer walking for the next two months in an outreach to our neighbors around Beautiful Savior Lutheran Church. These videos are very helpful in understanding what prayer walking is and how to do it. We will be watching them to help us prepare for our walks in the weeks ahead.

Video of First Class on Music in the Church

Music in the Church, Part I, Vimeo from William Wingfield on Vimeo.

      This class is the first of seven Adult Bible Classes on music in the church, with a focus on music in Lutheran worship. We will be covering one period a week. The first week covered how the Bible describes singing and music, chant, the beginnings of polyphony, musical notation, congregational singing. There are several links on the right that connect to helpful sites that will help you dig deeper into the class topics.
      The course uses many materials provided by Thrivent's series, "500 Years of Lutheran Music" This website has the material that Thrivent published originally as "Celebrating the Musical Heritage of the Lutheran Church."

Next week's period will be the 16th century, the Reformation century.

Alleluia: Justus ut palma, Early experiment with polyphony.

This is an example of the earliest experiments with polyphony, two or more semi-independent musical melodies sung together. It is called "organum." The first organa used parallelism in the second musical line, that is, the second line was a fourth or fifth below the main chant line. In this example of free organum, the intervals above the main chant line vary in their distance, from unisons to fifths. The melody above the chant keeps the same rhythms, so the text is easy to understand.

Conditor Alme Siderum (Creator of the Stars of Night) LSB 351

This is a beautifully chanted performance of Conditor Alme Siderum, with Latin and English texts sung alternately on each verse. The Latin text and plainchant tune are ancient. The text comes from the 5th-10th century and the Sarum (Salisbury, England) chant melody goes back to the 9th century. The melody is one of the most exquisite examples of plainchant, the one-line, sung musical style of the early church. To say that music has progressed in the last thousand years, one has to ignore a perfect match of word and music such as this.

A Beautiful Example of Hebrew Chant

"Music" in the Bible

Yesterday I posted links to the verses in the Bible (ESV translation) that mention singing. Today I am posting all of the verses that use the word "music." If you hover over the verses below with the pointer on your computer the verses will pop up. This doesn't work on a smartphone or tablet, unfortunately.

1 Chr 15:22, 27–28; 16:42; 25:6; 2 Chr 7:6; 34:12; Ps 49:4; 92:3; 101:1; Isa 38:20; Lam 5:14; Ezek 26:13; Dan 3:5, 7, 10, 15; Amos 6:5; Luke 15:25

All the Verses That "Sing" in the Bible (ESV)

This Sunday, the 7th of April, I will be teaching the first class of a series of adult Bible classes in music in the church. In this class I hope to present an overview of how music has been used in Christian worship from its roots in the songs of praise and thanksgiving of God's people in the Old Testament and New Testament times to the present. The first class will look at references to singing and playing instruments in the Bible, among other topics. There are 149 verses in the ESV translation of the Bible that contain words that are related to singing, "sing, sang, sung, singing, etc..." I will quote some of them in class, but I won't be able to read all of them. So I am listing the verses below. I found them with Accordance Bible software.

If you hover your pointer over a verse reference the verse will pop up. One of the amazing things about these verses is how many describe trees and mountains and other non-human living and non-living creatures of God described as singing. God created the universe with a voice! What a joyful testimony to the beauty of God's creation these verse are!

Exod 15:1, 21; 32:18; Num 21:17; Judg 5:1, 3; 1 Sam 18:6–7; 21:11; 29:5; 2 Sam 19:35; 22:50; 1 Chr 16:7, 9, 23, 33; 25:7; 2 Chr 20:21–22; 23:18; 29:28, 30; 30:21; 35:25; Ezra 3:11; Neh 12:27, 42; Job 21:12; 29:13; 33:27; 36:24; 38:7; Ps 5:11; 7:0, 17; 9:2, 11; 13:6; 18:49; 21:13; 27:6; 30:4, 12; 33:3; 47:6–7; 51:14; 57:7, 9; 59:16–17; 61:8; 63:7; 65:13; 66:2, 4; 67:4; 68:4, 32; 71:22–23; 75:9; 81:1; 84:2, 4; 89:1; 92:1, 4; 95:1; 96:1–2, 12; 98:1, 4–5, 8; 100:2; 101:1; 104:12, 33; 105:2, 43; 106:12; 108:1, 3; 119:172; 135:3; 137:3–4; 138:1, 5; 144:9; 145:7; 146:2; 147:1, 7; 149:1, 5; Prov 25:20; 29:6; Song 2:12; Isa 5:1; 12:5–6; 14:7; 16:10; 23:16; 24:9, 14; 26:1, 19; 27:2; 35:2, 6, 10; 42:10–11; 44:23; 49:13; 51:11; 52:8–9; 54:1; 55:12; 65:14; Jer 20:13; 31:7, 12; 33:11; 51:48; Ezek 33:32; Amos 6:5; Zeph 3:14, 17; Zech 2:10; Matt 11:17; 26:30; Mark 14:26; Luke 7:32; Acts 16:25; Rom 15:9; 1 Cor 14:15; Eph 5:19; Col 3:16; Heb 2:12; Jas 5:13; Rev 5:9; 14:3; 15:3