by David Melby-Gibbons
On Saturday, January 24, the "Harmonious to Dwell" workshop was held at the Seminary, directed toward people with an interest in the songs of the Moravian church. More specifically, the mission of the event was to be "a gathering of people who seek to celebrate and embrace Moravian music for new worship settings." The day began with worship, which we described as an "Exploratory Singstunde." The songs sung during worship showed a variety of different ways in which hymns can be "re-imagined" for congregational worship. For instance, the Moravian hymn "Christian Hearts in Love United" was led by guitars and with a reggae rhythm; another Moravian hymn, "What Brought Us Together," was led by flute only.
After worship, the assembled group (about 22 people) broke up into small groups for a half hour of "song-reimagination." The instructions were to take a familiar Moravian hymn and think of how it might be rendered more accessible for worship settings where there is no organist available to lead the singing. Some groups re-wrote the hymn melodies, while others changed the rhythm and/or text, or wrote some new alternative verses. One example of a change of text was for the hymn "All Glory Laud and Honor." One of the groups changed the title of this hymn to "This Here is Our Friend Jesus," and they wrote two new verses.
Following this time, Nola Reed Knouse, director of the Moravian Music Foundation in Winston-Salem, conducted a hymn-writing workshop. Nola discussed the various issues involved in altering an existing hymn (Text issues and Music issues) as well as some considerations for writing a hymn. Gwyn Michel also presented on copywrite issues during this time. Then, once we had been educated about how to write a hymn, and what to consider, we were given the opportunity to actually write a new hymn. The theme selected was "Faith, Love, and Hope." Nola explained that there are very few Moravian hymns with this theme, so it would be worthwhile to write one. We split up into three groups, with one group writing a verse on "Faith," another group wrote two verse on "Love," and the last group wrote a verse on "Hope." We were given the instructions to write our verse to the tune of "For the Beauty of the Earth." Our verses were to fit in with the metrical structure (7.7.7.7.7.7) Trochaic of this well-known hymn. So, as we wrote our verses, we sang our lines outloud, seeing if they would match this tune. When all the groups had completed their verse(s), we came together as a large group to sing the new hymn. While singing, it became obvious that some of the lines were tripping us up, and might need to be re-worked. So, we all sat down and went through all the verses, checking for theological considerations and practical issues (such as singability). We made some changes, and named the hymn based upon the last line of the final verse... "New Creation to Behold."
The workshop was created and organized by David Melby-Gibbons and students Christie Melby-Gibbons, Shanti Pradhan, Matt Gillard, and Nola Reed Knause. Also assisting with the workshop was Gwyn Michaels, assistant director of the Moravian Music Foundation in Bethlehem. After such a positive outcome, their hope is that congregations outside of the local area might hold similar workshops as they contemplate the significance of music in new worship experiences.
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