ADAPTATION by Editor

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · May 21, 1885

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 11, No. 20.

ADAPTATION.

By Editor

And this is to be regarded in two respects: First, the music must be adapted to the words. Secondly, the manner of execution must be adapted to both words and music. In this "Note," we will attend briefly to the first.

Many leaders, who are yet fair singers, utterly fail when they come to adaptation. If the hymn and tune agree in metre it seems to be about all for which they look. Not many months since we heard the hymn in our book on page 155 sung to the tune of Holley on the opposite page. Of course the first error was in the make-up of the book; for it is expected, when the tunes are scattered through the book, that there shall be some degree of correspondence between the hymns and the tunes. If there is not, then this scattering or intermixing is a positive detriment to the singing. Now Holley is one of the finest, sweetest plaintive pieces which our book contains. Viewing it in this light, think of singing it to the following words:— "Break through all the force of ill, Tread the might of passion down." Or to the battle cry of the verse preceding:— "Up, and take thy shield and sword; Up, it is the call of Heaven."

To sing the tune as it ought to be sung, such words become tame and spiritless. To sing the words as they ought to be sung is impossible to such a tune. The music is ruined; the object of singing is not gained. Boylston is another plaintive tune, almost universally outraged in execution. The words used by the composer are often (generally) a sure index to the style of the composition. Years ago, in works published by Lowell Mason himself, Boylston was used to the following words:— "Our days are as the grass, Or like the morning flower; When blasting winds sweep o'er the plain It withers in an hour."

Every singer ought to perceive that there is a correspondence between these words and the soft flowing style of the music; but the words we usually use present only a contrast.

And our heavy tunes are in like manner abused. We have known Old Hundred to be started by a good voice in a social meeting of six or eight persons! In a congregation we have heard it sung in a moderate, subdued style which, we suppose, was expected to indicate reverence. But our well-known "doxology" is not an address to the Deity; it is a call to all in Heaven and earth to praise the Lord. It is grand, majestic; and perhaps there is not another tune in existence which is so well calculated to bring out this grandeur as Old Hundred. But weakness in execution destroys the effect of this as certainly as boldness and vigor destroy the others to which we have referred. The German chorister possessed the inspiration of this tune when he said he could not execute it with less than two hundred good voices. The nearer we approach to this idea, the better justice will we do to this grand old tune.