Making Hymns More Accessible - Guest Post - Nathan Drake
What hymns do you consider most accessible to a modern audience?
1 | Explain
Your church must understand what they are singing if they are to worship fully. When you play a hymn with unfamiliar words or phrasing, help your congregation understand the language. Explain it. Relate it to your church’s experiences. Hymns can have amazing messages hidden behind unfamiliar words or phrases, but with a little preparation and explanation, those messages don’t have to stay hidden.
2 | Choose the verses wisely
There are some very good hymns with some very strange verses.
Hymns are a bit like a choose your own adventure book, you don’t need to play every verse every time (and with some hymns having over 15 verses you probably shouldn't.) If a particular verse is causing your people trouble, simply take it out. Don’t let a bad verse keep a good song from your church.
3 | “Modernize” it
There is no doubt that some hymns can sound very stale and outdated, but if we apply a few attributes of modern worship music to the hymns, they can fit naturally into a modern service.
Simplify the chords - Hymns written in 4 parts (SATB) have a “chord” under every note of the melody, modern music does not. Keep only the chords that must stay in order to support the melody.
Get Dynamic - Modern worship music relies heavily on dynamics, hymns are often played with very little dynamic changes. Adding greater dynamics can greatly improve or “modernize” the sound of a hymn.
Relax the melodic rhythm - While I don’t recommend hitting the notes whenever you want and leaving the congregation in the dust, your melody can be less staccato and more legato. Modern melodies flow. This helps worshippers that are used to modern melodies.
If you have not used hymns in fear they would not be relatable or accessible to your congregation, I want to encourage you to choose a hymn, apply the above tips, and give it a try. You may open up a whole new catalog of worship songs to your church.
Make sure to check out Nathan at www.reawakenhymns.com!
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