Hymn Tune Writing Month

[artsyhonker]

Some people do something called "NaNoWriMo": National Novel Writing Month, in November.

I had the thought yesterday that I might do something similar but with hymn tunes. The idea is to write thirty of them in thirty days.

This post is a placeholder for collecting texts and doing bits of planning...

If you've written a hymn text and released it under a Creative Commons license, please feel free to leave it in comments, or link to it there. If there's an existing public domain hymn text that has a rubbish tune and you think it could do with another, please do likewise.

Comments

[turkeyplucker]

Have this one:

All God's creation bless the Lord eternal;
Angels, Archangels, Powers and Dominations,
Waters of heaven, bless the Lord eternal;
Praise him for ever.

Sun, moon and starlight, bless the Lord eternal;
Showers, dew and breezes, summertime and winter,
Fire, heat and burning, bless the Lord eternal;
Praise him for ever.

Cold, dews, and hoar-frost, ice and snow and vapours,
Daylight and darkness, thunderclouds and lightning,
High hills and mountains, bless the Lord eternal;
Praise him for ever.

Earth and its green things, wells and seas and rivers,
Great whales and fishes, birds and beasts and cattle,
All men and women, Israelite and gentile,
Praise him for ever.

Priests in his service, spirits of the righteous,
Holy and humble, bless the Lord eternal;
Three Hebrew children in the fiery furnace,
Praise him for ever.

Praise God the Father, praise the sole-begotten,
Praise God the Spirit, Trinity co-equal,
As since creation, bless the Lord eternal,
Praise him for ever.

I wrote it with a chant tune in mind - nice, but a bit niche. Most of the alternatives in the metre are neo-Gallican, which I'm not keen on; it just about works with Cloister, but the cæsura is really in the wrong place (the long lines always split 5/6).

[artsyhonker]

I like this. The line "Three Hebrew children in the fiery furnace" struck me as slightly incongruous... the whole thing is a bit "Franciscan, Franciscan, Franciscan, Franciscan, Franc--RANDOM SCRIPTURAL REFERENCE, Doxology". Was there a particular reason for this? I'm curious rather than critical...

[turkeyplucker]

It's the Benedicite (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benedicite), the 32nd and last verse being, in the BCP version, "O Ananias, Azarias and Misael, bless ye the Lord : praise him, and magnify him for ever." The whole thing is from the Greek (I think) version of Daniel 3, but isn't in the Hebrew, so it's relegated to the apocrypha in protestant bibles.

[artsyhonker]

Of course.

*shuffles awkwardly*

*doesn't do BCP Mattins much these days*