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THE TESTS OF A GOOD HYMN TUNE

N groping after reasons for the faith that is in you

regarding hymn tunes, let me warn you against the

arbitrary formulæ found in many articles and books written by theorists. They look so wise, are so easily understood, and call for so little discretion in their application, that it is quite a temptation to a busy man whose mental interest lies elsewhere to accept them without question. Dr. Breed proposes one that looks plausible: "The fundamental form of the best tune embraces the following features: common time, one syllable to each note, simple melody and radical chords." Let the censor apply that rule to our hymnals and when he is done blacking out those failing to meet these tests, what would you have left? Why not enunciate a rule regarding hymns by a similar process of reasoning, that the fundamental form of a hymn is iambic measure, common meter and four lines to the stanza ?

The suggestion that triple time should not be used in church music is often made. One German-American writer even deprecates organ music in this time as having sensuous suggestions. There is quite as much propriety in the idea of the old monks of the eleventh century that triple, time is "perfect time" because it recognizes the doctrine of the Trinity! Yet another critic objects to it because it is too slow! William Mason, a writer on congregational singing in the early nineteenth century, inveighs

against the drawling singing then in vogue in the churches, and asks "that the first note be as short again as the second, the third as the fourth, and so on to the end of each line "-i. e., compound triple time, six-quarters or six-eighths-" prolonging the time of the whole strain to about twice that of solemn recitation. This, while it added to intelligibility, would take from psalmody its tedious drawl and certainly leave it sufficient gravity." Another American writer, afflicted with the" gush of amateurism," objects to "quick repeated successions of accented and unaccented notes, and dotted notes with rhythmical pulsations." These, he says, are " opposed to the very nature of a religious subject. Nothing sacred should be written in three-four, three-eight or six-eight time."

What a rabbinical tithing of anise and cummin, what a forgetting of the weightier matters of the law all this represents. This narrow, scholastic, mechanical attitude, moreover, is taken with infinite self-complacency as exclusive and superior. Let us freshen the atmosphere by quoting from Luther a passage regarding hymn tunes whose broad catholicity is as admirable as it is sensible: "I cannot praise those who banish all the Latin hymns from the church. On the other hand it is not less wrong to sing only Latin hymns for the congregation." A later German, Thibaut, whose little book on Purity in Music" is a classic, makes this plea for breadth of sympathy, "We deny ourselves the highest enjoyment in music if we aim at annihilating every composer and every style but one."

A good deal of stress has been laid on the origin of music to be used in the church and the exclusion of everything having a secular beginning is insisted upon.

It is true that the human mind is exceedingly quick to give music a definite meaning by associating with it in the memory ideas of things associated with it in its use. This tendency to association of ideas is very strong and despite the inherent non-religiousness of all music must be reckoned with. It is not the origin of the music that counts, if it is adapted to use in church work; it is the present immediate suggestion it brings that is to be considered. Hence Richard Storrs Willis was both right and wrong in rebuking Mason, Emerson, Webb and other contemporary hymn tune book makers for their habit of taking music from the most nondescript foreign sources: "Our psalm and hymn tunes are constructed in the form of German popular part songs. The old English glee has also served as a model. German convivial songs, soldier's songs, student's songs, are actually found bodily transferred to our books of church psalmody and are sung in our churches as sacred music." Had these German associations been known to the American churches, the objection would have been a valid one. Actually, the music had no associations whatever to the churches in this country and, in so far as they were practically adapted to religious uses, religious associations would immediately cluster about them. It is interesting to note that while only one of Willis' tunes, "Carol," a Christmas melody, survives, a number of these German secular tunes still find a place in our best hymnals. In this country the religious association has been firmly established and hence their usefulness is not disturbed by their origin.

In my early boyhood, I occasionally heard a spiritual, "Saw Ye My Saviour," which I greatly enjoyed. While the hymn is partly in the repetitious style common to the

early spirituals and has little value, the tune still seems to me melodious and worthy of use. Originally it was a popular colonial song, "Saw Ye Not My Father?" During the Revolution it was parodied and became Lady Washington's lament over the absence of her popular husband, "Saw Ye Not My Hero?" Later still it was made the basis of the "spiritual." Probably the association of ideas made the song offensive to people of taste when it first appeared; but once the secular song passed from the people's memory, as it naturally did soon after the close of the Revolutionary war, the incongruity disappeared with it. It became one of the most thoughtful and impressive of the "spirituals "; indeed in many communities its use would still be effective. It certainly is far superior to "The Old Time Religion," another "spiritual" which has again come into vogue and has been carried round the world by Dr. Torrey and Mr. Alexander.

Furthermore, rude, unlettered people have less inclination to a definite association of ideas and also less sensitiveness to incongruities of impression. This explains why the Salvation Army can take "The Devil's tunes without harm, while the editor of a high class hymnal must watch with exceeding care the associations connected with the tunes he uses.

The sensible, practical minister will brush aside all these artificial restrictions born of subjective theorizing, using "Dennis" and "Stockwell" and "Hursley," despite their triple time and " Rhine" and "St. Jude" and

Seymour," despite their convivial and operatic origin. He will consider intrinsic musical value and practical availability in his own work, utterly indifferent to the theorists in their studies who amuse themselves with microscopic and impracticable niceties.

What are the criteria by which we may judge whether a tune is a good one or not?

In the first place, a tune must be tuneful. That seems so self-evident that a statement of it strikes one as superfluous. But when one looks over some of the later English tunes and sees how this essential characteristic of a hymn tune is ignored, there is evidently a call for emphasizing it. Here is the melody of " Bevan" by Sir John Goss.

Apart from the harmonies, which are technically very well done, and interesting, the most of the tune looks like a vocal exercise in scales, and the rest is so commonplace and so threadbare with constant use that even American Sunday-school music writers no longer have the courage to reproduce it! There is nothing pleasing, nor characteristic, nor expressive of any feeling in the melody, although I confess the varied, harmonies give a factitious interest. That may redeem it as a musical composition, but not as a hymn tune. The very first test of a tune is the charm, the marked character and the expressiveness that enable it to stand alone. If that fails nothing else can save it.

A tune must be vocal in character. Not every strong