Singing the Psalms (during Lent)

Click here for Matt’s tutorial video for this coming Sunday’s Psalm.

“In their original form the psalms were not pure poetry but songs, perhaps with instrumental accompaniment.” 

If the Psalms are songs, why don’t we sing them? Sure, we sing them in a way. Many songs are paraphrases of the Psalms. We’re familiar with metrical psalmody, which rose to prominence in the Calvinist tradition as a way of singing Psalm texts in a hymn-like style (think “All People That on Earth Do Dwell” from Psalm 100). We also have songs of our day that are inspired by the Psalms (think “House of God Forever” from Psalm 23). But do we think of the Psalms primarily as songs or as sacred texts? Chanting the Psalms is a way of treasuring and honoring their origin as inspired song and we will do so in Sunday worship throughout Lent.

The Evolution of Psalm Chanting

The Psalms themselves remind us they were written as songs. Modern Bible translations usually include musical instructions that are found with the text of the Psalms in early manuscripts. Take Psalm 4, for example. Before verse one starts, we see “To the leader: with stringed instruments.” Psalm 6 gives the instruction “according to The Sheminith,” which may represent the tune or musical range that was associated with the Psalm. In addition to clues here and in many other Psalms, there is much historical evidence that Jews chanted the Psalms, a tradition that continues today. 

Jesus himself would have been used to singing the Psalms. I like to imagine that in his humanity, Jesus’ singing of the Psalms helped him memorize them. (Am I alone in remembering Sunday School songs learned, ahem, many years ago?) Matthew’s and Mark’s accounts of the Last Supper include the detail Jesus and his disciples “had sung the hymn” when the meal concluded. This was likely the chanting of Psalms 115-118, traditionally sung at the end of the Passover meal.

Simply stated, chant is singing a text to the rhythm of speech. Chanting enables us to sing prose since we do not have to fit words to a musical meter. In Western Christianity, there are two forms of chant, or plainsong, that are most commonly sung today.

The first is Gregorian chant, the form of chant that typically comes to mind. It is monophonic, meaning there is only one line of music sung by everyone at the same time. The early church continued the Jewish tradition of chanting, and by extension the practice of Jesus. Chant was an oral tradition, existing prior to modern musical notation. Chanting was common in various forms in monastic communities and used to sing not only the Psalms, but the Mass and Divine Office. The entirety of the book of Psalms was sung throughout the office hours over a week’s time, a practice still observed by many monastic communities.

During the rule of Pope Gregory the Great, efforts were made to standardize various liturgies to the practice of the church of Rome. The chanting style of the Roman church largely won out, as Rome was the center of power. Musical notation as we know it did not exist during Gregory’s papacy; therefore, it is dubious that Roman chant was actually codified by Pope Gregory. Codification into the eight psalm tones we now refer to as Gregorian chant likely happened in later centuries.

The second common form of chant is Anglican chant, which arose out of the English Reformation. The Reformation brought the need for vernacular liturgical texts instead of worshipping in unknown Latin. Though earlier English translations of the Bible existed, Miles Coverdale published the first complete Bible in English. The Psalms of his Great Bible served as the psalter for the first version of the Book of Common Prayer in 1549. The Coverdale Psalter is the foundation for our 2019 BCP psalter.

In 1550, John Merbecke set the new English language psalter and prayer book to music in his booke of Common praier noted. He attempted to keep the music simple for church use, suit the English text, incorporate traditional English music, and keep the text-based free rhythms of Gregorian chant. Merbecke’s settings did not have staying power as the BCP went through subsequent changes and England experienced religious turmoil not settled until the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Anglican chant received a revival during the Oxford Movement in the nineteenth century and is commonly practiced throughout the Anglican communion to this day.

Unlike the monophonic texture of Gregorian chant, Anglican chant’s texture is homophonic, meaning the melody is supported harmonically by other parts. Anglican chant typically uses a four-voice texture, similar to hymn writing, in which the melody found in the soprano (top) line is accompanied by the alto, tenor, and bass parts below moving at the same basic rhythm. Anglican chant is often accompanied by instruments.

Singing the Psalms in 2021

So where does that leave us? We know that a Psalm is part of our weekly Eucharistic liturgy. Why not sing the Psalms instead of reciting them, returning them to their rightful place as songs? Of course, we will continue to worship with metrical psalms and new songs birthed from the Scriptures. In addition to these expressions, we will embrace chanting the Psalms during Lent. We will be utilizing Gregorian chant for two reasons: because it’s easier to start a practice of chant with one part than with four, and the austerity of Gregorian chant is well-suited to Lent. We will honor our Anglican heritage by utilizing the Coverdale Psalter for the Psalm texts (as is our usual practice). 

Why look backward when thinking about singing the Psalms today? Like many spiritual disciplines, chanting has relevance for our lives. In an act of sacred remembrance, we join in the song of Jesus, doing what he did. We connect with historic church practices and the communion of saints across centuries. Like the early church, we value corporate Psalm singing as a symbol of unity. We reverence the Holy Scriptures by bending our song to it rather than it to our will. We let the Word reside in us deeply and breathe it back out in prayer as we find ourselves singing it both intentionally and unexpectedly throughout our day. We affirm the wisdom of the Creator who has equipped us uniquely to praise him with song.

Basic Considerations for Chanting

One of the common objections I hear from people who are not used to chanting is, “But I can’t read music.” As alluded to in the historical context above, neither could centuries of chanters! Chant is an oral tradition and you will pick it up as we sing it. 

People also believe that chant is challenging. I would counter that chant is not so much difficult as much as it is different compared with what we’re used to singing. The chant settings we will use will be less complex musically than any other song we sing on a Sunday morning.

So I challenge you to jump in with heart, mind, and voice as we add this expression to our Sunday worship. You may even find yourself sing-praying the Psalms as you go about your day!

For those of you wanting a little more instruction, the following illustration shows how the Psalm will be projected on Sunday. The bullets that follow are adapted from Music Resources for the ACNA. Also, check out the linked video demonstration.

Psalm 27:1 in chant notation

• The music printed above each chant is printed there for initial learning of the memorable and relatively simple two-measure chant, and afterward only for reference. Once the melody has been learned, there is less need to focus on the printed music and with the melody in hand, the congregation can now move their focus on singing and worshipping with the given Psalm text.

• The text of each Psalm is pointed (pointing is a method of marking the syllables of a psalm for chanting) to reflect the layout of the printed music. Therefore, there are quarter ( ׀ ) and single ( | ) bar lines included in the Psalm text, just as in the music, with a bolded double bar line ( ) indicating when the chant music comes to an end and the worshippers are to start again at the beginning of the chant.

• Good chanting, at its foundation, is the rhythm of speech (as one would recite a poem out loud) sung on a given pitch. When chanting, the words are sung on the same given pitch in the printed chant melody (the reciting tone) until encountering a bar line within the Psalm text. Any bar line, whether quarter ( ׀ ), single ( | ), or bolded double (║), indicates a change of pitch for the singers and corresponds directly to the bar lines within the chant music.

• Sing through commas, so as to maintain the musical line. Breathe at periods, exclamation marks, as well as semi-colons. Some of the chants include a note in parentheses. This note is only used in singing the chant when the last word of a line has multiple syllables.

-Matt Wolchak, Advent’s Worship Leader