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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Music that helps us pray.
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Twilight
Puddleglum's sister
# 2832
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Posted
I started to put this on the prayer thread, but then thought it might disrupt the flow. I just find that if there's someone I want to pray for, at more length than usual, certain music helps me spend a little time thinking of them in prayer. Like this song.
Posts: 6817 | Registered: May 2002
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Uncle Pete
Loyaute me lie
# 10422
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Posted
These days I say my rosary to the early morning chants at the Hindu temple, a few hundred feet from my open window.
Music is useful for some; but for deaf me, I find a candle flame acts as a focal point.
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Even more so than I was before
Posts: 20466 | From: No longer where I was | Registered: Sep 2005
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Lyda*Rose
Ship's broken porthole
# 4544
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Twilight:
I started to put this on the prayer thread, but then thought it might disrupt the flow. I just find that if there's someone I want to pray for, at more length than usual, certain music helps me spend a little time thinking of them in prayer. Like this song.
It's lovely, but I'm afraid that lyrics in English derail me. But Latin is another story. I bought this CD of Catholic chants at a Benedictine abbey with both ancient music and modern adaptations, and I find them very prayerful.
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"Dear God, whose name I do not know - thank you for my life. I forgot how BIG... thank you. Thank you for my life." ~from Joe Vs the Volcano
Posts: 21377 | From: CA | Registered: May 2003
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Huia
Shipmate
# 3473
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Posted
I prefer a candle flame too, but sometimes Hildegarde of Bingen's music helps.
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Charity gives food from the table, Justice gives a place at the table.
Posts: 10382 | From: Te Wai Pounamu | Registered: Oct 2002
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
Either In ieunio et fletu or Audivi media nocte - both by Thomas Tallis.
For thanksgiving prayer God spake sometimes in visions by John Blow or Haydn The Heavens are telling.
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
Posts: 4950 | From: somewhere in England... | Registered: Sep 2012
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blackbeard
Ship's Pirate
# 10848
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Posted
Not so much listening, as singing.
Another vote for Tallis, of course, and a special mention for the Byrd Ave Verum. And Purcell Hear my Prayer, and ... where do we stop?
Currently rehearsing the German Requiem (Brahms). Great stuff, and poses a few interesting questions.
Posts: 823 | From: Hampshire, UK | Registered: Dec 2005
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HCH
Shipmate
# 14313
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Posted
Dead silence.
Posts: 1540 | From: Illinois, USA | Registered: Nov 2008
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
Old hymns.
And as I realised on Sunday, for me the true sound of Christian worship, or worshipping Christians, is a real congregation singing hymns they mean accompanied by a tinkly upright piano. Choirs and organs and worship bands are all very well, but not the real deal.
And please no piddling around with slow and boring and emotionally manipulative mood music or ambient or even lovely polyphony. I like Tallis as much as the next bloke - but either you are listening hard to him (and so not praying) or letting it all wash over you (and so probably falling asleep). To inhabit the prayer you want words you can remember and words you can mean (or if you can't honestly mean them, words you can know well enough to know what you disagree with) so you own them in a sense, singing (or listening) consciously whilst praying your own prayers at the same time.
"And can it be?" is a good start. "Just as I am". "Amazing Grace". All of which we sang at church this week. ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
The true sound of Christian worship, or worshipping Christians, is a real congregation singing hymns they mean accompanied by a tinkly upright piano.
Out of tune, with a few strings missing, and an occasional unexpected "plink!" due to the mouse who lives inside ...? ![[Devil]](graemlins/devil.gif)
(That's the piano, by the way, not the congregation).
[ 25. February 2014, 10:17: Message edited by: Baptist Trainfan ]
Posts: 9750 | From: The other side of the Severn | Registered: Sep 2009
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Twilight
Puddleglum's sister
# 2832
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Posted
I'm totally with ken about those old hymns and the piano. "Just as I am," always gets to me, as well as, "Softly and Tenderly," and "Leaning on the Everlasting Arms." I loved Iris Dement singing that one at the end of True Grit.
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
Silence works for me, but plainchant does as well.
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by PeteC:
These days I say my rosary to the early morning chants at the Hindu temple, a few hundred feet from my open window.
Not strictly a counterpoint, but I often use Gregorian chant as a background to my meditations.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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MarsmanTJ
Shipmate
# 8689
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Posted
Stanford's Beati Quorum Via would be my number one choice for music that helps me pray.
Posts: 238 | Registered: Oct 2004
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Mad Cat
Shipmate
# 9104
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Posted
I spent much time praying to Gorecki's Symphony no. 3, unusually, as I get distracted by words.
I'm in choirs, and pray as I sing. Singing is helpful, as you have to be in the moment. As it's been said, qui cantat, bis orat.
I love hymns and find them very prayerful. One of my favourites is 'Forth in thy name, o Lord, I go'. The line 'Preserve me from my calling's snare is one I remember often. Since a wee thing, I've loved 'Alleluia, sing to Jesus'. I always loved the line:
'Where the songs of all the sinless
Sweep across the crystal sea.'
It appealed to my Tolkein-ish side, and is a lovely image. To this day, I can barely sing it for filling up.
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Weird and sweary.
Posts: 1844 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2005
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Chorister
Completely Frocked
# 473
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Posted
I agree with the term 'Those who sing pray twice', however, it's very difficult to do both at once. What it means, I think, is that through music the words worm their way into your heart in a deeper sense, so that they can be recalled at other times, outwith the actual services where you are concentrating like topsy. The words of the Psalms are particularly helpful in this respect, either recalled to Anglican chant or to one of the many Anthem settings.
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Retired, sitting back and watching others for a change.
Posts: 34626 | From: Cream Tealand | Registered: Jun 2001
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Piglet
Islander
# 11803
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Chorister:
... through music the words worm their way into your heart in a deeper sense, so that they can be recalled ...
I couldn't have put it better, Chorister - that's exactly what I've been thinking as I've been reading this thread.
I'd add to the list anthems that are settings of collects from the Prayer Book, like Call to remembrance by Farrant and Prevent us, O Lord by Byrd (there are lots more, but those were the first ones to come into my head).
[slight tangent]
quote:
The words of the Psalms are particularly helpful ...
As a singer, do you ever find yourself using a phrase in everyday conversation and then realise that it came from the Psalms?
[/slight tangent]
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I may not be on an island any more, but I'm still an islander.
alto n a soprano who can read music
Posts: 20272 | From: Fredericton, NB, on a rather larger piece of rock | Registered: Sep 2006
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ThunderBunk
Stone cold idiot
# 15579
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Posted
The act of singing is of itself prayerful. It is an offering to God of a talent given to the singer, an offering of thanks and praise.
Liturgical singing is also the creation of beauty in praise of God, particularly if the music is chosen sensitively and with care, and not because it's the right length or has other utilitarian attributes. Music for a purpose is fine, providing that the purpose is not the only reason for its existence.
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Currently mostly furious, and occasionally foolish. Normal service may resume eventually. Or it may not. And remember children, "feiern ist wichtig".
Foolish, potentially deranged witterings
Posts: 2208 | From: Norwich | Registered: Apr 2010
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