New hymns/songs

Most of the arrangements for the new hymns/songs being released are for the piano. Are we supposed to just try our best to adapt them when playing the organ? Or are we going to be moving toward playing the piano in the chapels instead of the organ?

Moderator note: This thread was split from a previous nine year old thread discussing a different topic.

What songs are you looking at? Some of the Hymns in the music app, like 1004 "I Will Walk with Jesus" has some pretty long sustains that I wouldn't think would be piano friendly.

I do notice other style differences. A number of them don't seem to be written for 4-part choirs. (They also don't specify that it should be in unison or not.) They also list the chord names which I'd think would make them more friendly to other instruments, like guitar.

There are several songs in similar style in the 1985 Hymnbook that we love to use in sacrament meeting, such as "Love One Another", "Because I Have Been Given Much", "Families Can Be Together Forever", and "Teach Me to Walk in the Light", which work OK on the organ. As for new hymns, we've used "When the Savior Comes Again", "I Will Walk With Jesus", and "His Eye Is on the Sparrow", in sacrament meeting; it went extremely well, and our organist adapted them just fine. Haven't tried "Gethsamane" yet, just because we haven't had an appropriate occasion, and I'm a bit concerned about the congregation following the structure (the D.S. al Coda especially).

Here are the relevant quotes from the General Handbook:

19.3.2: The piano, organ, or another instrument approved by the bishopric may be used to accompany hymn singing in sacrament meeting.

19.3.6: Live instruments are normally used for prelude and postlude music and for hymn accompaniment in Church meetings. Where they are available and where members can play them, organs and pianos are the standard instruments. Bishoprics may approve the use of other instruments to accompany congregational singing, for prelude and postlude music, and in other musical selections.
…
If a piano, organ, or accompanist is not available, recordings may be used.

There's no preference for organ over piano or vice versa. If you're comfortable on both, I think it makes sense to switch between them depending on the style of the song.

Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing has been in the Hungarian hymnbook for some time. On my mission I played the piano in the branch assigned to. I notice the new English version Hymn 1001 has a slightly different arrangement, mostly in the left hand. While muscle memory makes it harder to adapt, i was wondering what led to the changes as it seems a touch more awkward in this version.

My LDS Unit has one of the Kawai CN 43 - LDS Digital Pianos. Will the new hymns be made available to download into this digital piano at some point?

New subject: “Joy to the World” was originally written as follows: Joy to the world, the Lord WILL come!” - as noted in “ The Second Coming of the Lord” by Gerald Lund, page 332. Would the Church music committee consider changing Joy to the World back to the text’s author, Isaac Watts,’ original wording- “Will” Come —since this hymn is clearly about the Second Coming of Christ. I imagine Pres. Nelson might potentially be in favor of this with his emphasis on our all preparing for our Lord and Savior’s return.

tumkin wrote: Thu Nov 14, 2024 4:29 pm New subject: “Joy to the World” was originally written as follows: Joy to the world, the Lord WILL come!” - as noted in “ The Second Coming of the Lord” by Gerald Lund, page 332. Would the Church music committee consider changing Joy to the World back to the text’s author, Isaac Watts,’ original wording- “Will” Come —since this hymn is clearly about the Second Coming of Christ. I imagine Pres. Nelson might potentially be in favor of this with his emphasis on our all preparing for our Lord and Savior’s return.

[Edit: Please see the next post for a more complete answer.]

The current/green hymn book says the text was altered by William W. Phelps. I had always figured the change in that word was to bear witness of the First Vision--that the Lord _HAS_ come again as part of the sequence of visits and other events that lead up to the big event. At least one other change seems to be of a similar character: "saints and angels" instead of "heaven and nature".

The original words were "Joy to the World; the Lord is come" – see Psalms of David Imitated, page 253, published by Isaac Watts in 1719. The hymn was written as an advent hymn that looks forward to the second coming, but the word "is" wasn't changed to "will" until William W. Phelps published his adapted version in The Evening and the Morning Star, December 1832. It was changed back to "is," probably to hold familiarity with the broader Christian community, in our 1985 hymnal (the current hymnal). Several of William W. Phelp's other adjustments were kept in 1985, such as "saints and angels," and the full fourth verse that starts with "Rejoice! rejoice! in the Most High." It will be interesting to see what additional changes, if any, will be in the new hymnal.

Be sure to send feedback through the Sacred Music app or website if you have suggestions!

Not sure how to use this wiki or who to ask....but just confirming that the church is no longer accepting new music submissions, correct? I'm going thru my mom's music and found a hymn she wrote and copyrighted in 2005, using the words from Doctrine & Covenants 84: 99-102. She passed away in July 2022. Just thought I'd check. Thx...

Alecia123 wrote: Wed Jan 22, 2025 2:16 pm Not sure how to use this wiki or who to ask....but just confirming that the church is no longer accepting new music submissions, correct? I'm going thru my mom's music and found a hymn she wrote and copyrighted in 2005, using the words from Doctrine & Covenants 84: 99-102. She passed away in July 2022. Just thought I'd check. Thx...

If you review the timeline half-way down this page (https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/ini ... s?lang=eng) it appears the submission deadline has passed for the new hymnbook.

However, you can still submit new music here (not for the new hymnbook, though): https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/mus ... c?lang=eng
You may not be able to submit your mother's work, though, since the site states you can only submit your own work.

docgnorris wrote:
> Most of the arrangements for the new hymns/songs being released are for the
> piano. Are we supposed to just try our best to adapt them when playing the
> organ? Or are we going to be moving toward playing the piano in the chapels
> instead of the organ?

All the new hymns can be played on the organ. The bass line is played with the organ pedals, and often some of your notes on the keyboard must be tied to make the hymn legato, rather than choppy. A few of the new hymns tend to favor being played on the piano, but ALL of them are fine for playing on the organ. I've played all of them for church on the organ. I've been an organist since I was a teen --for 40ish years and had excellent private teachers, one of whom now teaches at the free church organ classes available online-Elizabeth Forsyth--her classes are ALWAYS worth taking. In recent years the Church has offered through BYU various organ classes, and anyone serving in an organist position, particularly those who haven't taken private organ lessons, would benefit greatly from taking advantage of these great free classes offered. Here's the link: https://www.bigmarker.com/communities/b ... onferences

billscott wrote: Mon Nov 11, 2024 2:42 pm I notice the new English version Hymn 1001 has a slightly different arrangement, mostly in the left hand.

I too noticed the difference. "Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing" was also in the English hymn book that was in use prior to the 1985 hymnal (which is probably the same arrangement for the Hungarian hymnal). It was a blue book (or sometimes brown). The tenor part, in particular, is considerably different. Also, the entire hymn has been transposed from E-flat major to C-sharp major. Also an additional verse (no. 2) has been added. Maybe one day the Church will publish the rational for the various changes to hymns over the years---I think that would make for an interesting read. You may not know that when they published the 1985 edition, a lot of the songs were transposed a key or two lower---who knows, maybe the general trend for members has been to have lower vocal registers.

ambldsorg wrote: Sun Jan 26, 2025 8:32 am Maybe one day the Church will publish the rational for the various changes to hymns over the years---I think that would make for an interesting read. You may not know that when they published the 1985 edition, a lot of the songs were transposed a key or two lower---who knows, maybe the general trend for members has been to have lower vocal registers.

The Church music department actually said at the time in a published Church News article that one of the reasons key changes were made was because sharps were easier to play than flats.

After I laughed myself to sleep, I woke up Sunday morning realizing that I could no longer play six of the eight hymns I had learned to play for priesthood meeting. We alternated the remaining two until I learned to play a third hymn. I never relearned the others.

lajackson wrote: Sun Jan 26, 2025 11:44 am ...

After I laughed myself to sleep, I woke up Sunday morning realizing that I could no longer play six of the eight hymns I had learned to play for priesthood meeting. We alternated the remaining two until I learned to play a third hymn. I never relearned the others.

You know, that problem could have been solved by a piano with auto-transpose functionality.

lajackson wrote: Sun Jan 26, 2025 11:44 am The Church music department actually said at the time in a published Church News article that one of the reasons key changes were made was because sharps were easier to play than flats.

I think this is a highly subjective reason. I find it much easier to play flats than sharps, especially when there are more of them (e.g. 6 flats are easier for me than even 4 sharps). I asked my children which is easier and it's a mixed bag (some prefer flats some prefer sharps), so if the reason that they gave for changing keys was because it's easier to play sharps, I would suspect that the person who played them has a preference for sharps.

If you can find the published news article and share it here I would be interested in reading it.

ambldsorg wrote: Sun Jan 26, 2025 3:05 pm ...

If you can find the published news article and share it here I would be interested in reading it.

I searched around https://www.thechurchnews.com/ but have not (yet) found anything useful. The by-date filtering appears to move only a month at a time, so clicking all the way back to ~1985 might wear out a mouse's button switch.

Putting something like the following into a general search engine might be more productive:

• site:www.thechurchnews.com transposed hymns 1985

rmrichesjr wrote: Sun Jan 26, 2025 3:25 pm The by-date filtering appears to move only a month at a time, so clicking all the way back to ~1985 might wear out a mouse's button switch.

That's true if you use the calendar tool, but you can enter the date directly in the text box. Just note that the format is dd-mm-yyyy

But that's not going to help much. Doing a search on "Hymns" doesn't turn up anything until 1989.

russellhltn wrote: Sun Jan 26, 2025 8:15 pm That's true if you use the calendar tool, but you can enter the date directly in the text box. Just note that the format is dd-mm-yyyy

Oh, it allows hyphens. I had tried typing slashes into the text box, but it did not allow slashes, so I had figured it allowed only digits.

rmrichesjr wrote: Sun Jan 26, 2025 8:34 pm Oh, it allows hyphens. I had tried typing slashes into the text box, but it did not allow slashes, so I had figured it allowed only digits.

I just went by how the date picking tool populated the field.

ambldsorg wrote: Sun Jan 26, 2025 3:05 pm If you can find the published news article and share it here I would be interested in reading it.

I tried. And thanks to everyone else who also blazed the mists of ancient search trails.

Alas, it was 39 years ago, I have slept since then, and at the time I was receiving the Church News weekly by snail mail. I no longer have any of those papers.

Using newer technology (i.e., my laptop), the oldest Deseret News article I was able to find was a 1988 item, still four years shy of my time traveling destination.

The quote would have been by Michael Moody, then chairman of the Church Music Committee. Searching the CN archives under his name, I did find a few blast from the past items of interest:

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https://www.thechurchnews.com/1989/2/25 ... available/
All the hymns in the LDS hymnbook have been . . . recorded in stereophonic sound on 18 cassette tapes, with approximately 45 minutes of material on each side of a tape. Bound in a plastic case with a color photo on the cover, . . .
=====

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https://www.thechurchnews.com/2005/9/24 ... -turns-20/
After the [1985 hymnbook] was announced in the early 1980s, the music office was deluged with some 6,000 hymns from throughout the Church, and giving due consideration to each one was a "humongous task," he said.
=====

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https://www.thechurchnews.com/1992/4/25 ... of-choirs/
"Our policy is that choirs should sing in at least two sacrament meetings each month throughout the year. Elder Mark E. Petersen [a member of the Council of the Twelve, now deceased] used to say every Sunday is even better.
=====

Spoken like a true music person.

lajackson wrote: Mon Jan 27, 2025 12:13 pm I tried. And thanks to everyone else who also blazed the mists of ancient search trails.

Thanks for the effort. I read through some of the news articles you found and they were fun to read, especially the one about "tapes". Few youngsters know what those are now I imagine.

I agree. I think this needs to be properly addressed at some point.
Not all organists can just adapt it. And in the past it was suggested to play straight out of the hymn book. No adaptations.
So, it’s all a bit confusing at the moment