Today I filled in for organist Gloria Faltstrom at Waiokeola Congregational Church. When I came to practice last Tuesday, I was given enlarged photocopies of the hymns. Smaller versions were also printed in the Sunday bulletin which I picked up this morning before the service.
The last hymn was not familiar to me—at least I had never heard the tune, so I dutifully practiced it—it was “All hail the power of Jesus’ name” (tune: DIADEM)
Just before the service began, the choir director, Larry Cross, came over to the organ console and said, “I think I gave the office the wrong hymn number—it should have been the more familiar tune (CORONATION). He then found me a hymnal and opened it to hymn 91.
“Let’s not confuse people with a tune they don’t know.”
“No problem.”
Here’s a video of the congregation from the First Plymouth Church, Lincoln, Nebraska singing the tune CORONATION.
I did notice right away that the version I played from the hymnal had five verses rather than four verses, so I only played four verses (Thank you for paying attention!). To me, everything went fine— but after the postlude, and as I picked up my music to leave the church, Larry called me aside and started laughing.
“The words that were printed in the bulletin didn’t match the words of the tune you played!”
I looked back at the hymnal printout and noticed it had an extra phrase compared to CORONATION. However it would have been easy enough to follow along, by skipping the extra phrase and repeating the last phrase, eliminating all the “crown him” iterations in the chorus.
Oh well, the congregation sang out heartily and no one would have noticed anything was amiss!
The follies and foibles of being an “on call” organist!
Oh, Kathy! I almost had a heart attack when you mentioned First Plymouth! When I lived in Lincoln, Nebraska, not only did I attend there, I sang in the choir AND played in the bell choir. What a wonderful bunch of people. And thank you for taking me down a wonderful and happy familiar path. Now living in St. Louis, Missouri, I still play Horn and am in three concert bands, soon to add a fourth this Spring.
You gave me a good laugh, Kathy. We’ve had a couple of musical collisions in the past month or so, when Larry chose a benediction response that no one in the choir, including me, was familiar with. Instead, we sang the Queen’s Prayer, which had a few people mumbling instead of singing. Last year a lovely final hymn for communion Sunday that I didn’t know. I mentioned that fact, and he assured me that everyone knew that one! On Sunday he found out that absolutely no one in the choir or congregation had learned that hymn. We made it through and sang it several times in the following weeks.