You need only minimal playing skills and three chords; G, C and D7 to accompany the beautiful songs of faith in this innovative book. If you are a beginning or "casual" player on a chording instrument, this is the book for you. The book is bursting with a great variety of timeless standards your entire family will enjoy. An outstanding collection of innovation arrangements made playable for folks who play for their own enjoyment. Melody and lyrics are included with all songs.
Guitar, ukulele and five-string banjo diagrams are included for the three chords along with tips on strumming. Transposing and use of capo tips are included for singers.

Whilst Contemporary Worship Music arose out of a desire to relate the music of the church to the music of everyday life, this function can quickly be called into question by the diversity of musical lives present in contemporary society. Mark Porter examines the relationship between individuals' musical lives away from a Contemporary Worship Music environment and their diverse experiences of music within it, presenting important insights into the complex and sometimes contradictory relationships between congregants' musical lives within and outside of religious worship. Through detailed ethnographic investigation Porter challenges common evangelical ideals of musical neutrality, suggesting the importance of considering musical tastes and preferences through an ethical lens. He employs cosmopolitanism as an interpretative framework for understanding the dynamics of diverse musical communities, positioning it as a stronger alternative to common assimilationist and multiculturalist models.

The fifteen studies assembled here grew out of research on south-Italian ordinary chants and tropes for the multi-volume series Beneventanum Troporum Corpus II, edited by John Boe in collaboration with Alejandro Planchart. In the present essays, clerical and ordinary chants and tropes of the Mass (especially when derived from paraliturgical hymns and poems), certain aspects of chant notation and particular facets of the old Beneventan and the old Roman chant repertories are examined in relation to the three main cultic centres of the Italian south - Benevento, Montecassino and Rome - and as they relate to their European context, namely Frankish and Norman chant and the varieties of chant sung in Italy north of Rome. The volume includes one previously unpublished study, on the Roman introit Salus Populi.

The scholar Robin A. Leaver holds a unique place in sacred music scholarship because of his training in both music and theology. He has written widely, bringing acute insights on a variety of musical repertories and topics related to Martin Luther, sixteenth-century psalmody, hymnody, and the sacred music of Johann Sebastian Bach. In Music and Theology, twelve scholars influenced by Leaver's work contribute essays in diverse areas of sacred music history and philosophy, focusing on the intersection of music and theology. Ranging chronologically from the twelfth-century writer and composer Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) to present-day considerations of American church music and worship, the volume provides thought-provoking new work for all who study church music. Reflecting the prominent emphasis in Leaver's own scholarship, eight chapters deal with the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, including his organ music, sacred cantatas, and passion settings. A final chapter provides a chronological listing of Leaver's own voluminous writings on music and theology.

This book is the first-ever study of Malta's major eighteenth-century composer, Benigno Zerafa (1726 - 1804), a specialist in sacred music composition. This book is the first-ever study of Malta's major eighteenth-century composer, Benigno Zerafa (1726-1804), a specialist in sacred music composition. Zerafa's large-scale and small-scale vocal and choral works, mostly written during his long service as musical director at the Cathedral of Mdina, have been winning increased recognition in recent years. In addition to describing and analysing this extensive corpus, the book gives an account of Zerafa's sometimes eventful career against the wider background of the rich musical and cultural life in Malta, especial attention being paid to its strong links with Italy, and particularly Naples, where Zerafa was a student for six years. Itexamines in detail the complex relationship of music to Catholic liturgy and investigates the distinctive characteristics of the musical style, intermediate between baroque and classical, in which Zerafa was trained and always composed: one that today is commonly labelled "galant". Well stocked with music examples, the book makes copious reference to Italian and Maltese composers from Zerafa's time and to modern analytical studies of Italian music from the middle decades of the eighteenth century, thereby offering a useful general commentary on the galant period. Its central aim, however, is to stimulate further interest in, and revival of, Zerafa's music. To this end the book contains a complete work-list with supplementary indexes. Scholars and students of eighteenth-century music, in particular sacred music, the galant style and Italian music, will find it invaluable. FREDERICK AQUILINAis Senior Lecturer in Music Studies at the University of Malta.

It has been said that the quickest way to God's innermost ear is through niggunim - Jewish tunes chanted or sung as prayers. Thousands of niggunim have been composed over the centuries, and they remain an active part of Jewish life today. Sung in the synagogue, around the Shabbos table, at farbrengenchasidic get-togethers - at work, in solitude, to express joy or sorrow, niggunim allow Jews to find that which is hidden deep within their souls, to connect with God and their own spiritually without the use of words. In Niggun: Stories behind the Chasidic Songs that Inspire Jews, Mordechai Staiman relates thirty-eight tales in which niggunim affect the lives of Jews. The stories range from those about great chasidic rebbes of the past, such as "The Purpose of Life", in which the Baal Shem Tov binds a Jew to the world of music to help him find his way; through those from recent history, such as "David without the Slingshot" and "Embers midst the Ruins", where niggunim helped to save people from certain death at the hands of the Nazis, and "Jerusalem on Her Mind", about Soviet-Jewish emigres; to contemporary situations, as in "Jail House Rock", in which the singing of a niggun helps to bring holiday magic to Jewish prisoners on Riker's Island in New York City, and "Leonard Bernstein Unbound", in which the great conductor is so moved by a tune that he is prompted to wrap tefillin for the first time. This wonderfully moving collection contains stories of faith, of miracles and transformations, and of daily life, all connected through the beauty of niggunim. According to the author, the stories, or "prayers", as he calls them, contained in Niggun will teach us about our deep, rich, Jewishheritage, helping us to reclaim our inheritance and share in the Jewish legacy.

for SATB and organ or brass ensemble This arrangement of Rimsky-Korsakov's 'Glory' (Slava, Op.21) by Terry Price brings this popular Russian anthem to a wider audience. The original Russian text has been replaced with a hymn by the arranger that draws inspiration from words by Reginald Heber, verses from Revelation, and the liturgy, and is particularly suitable for Easter, as well as for general use. Price's arrangement of this rousing tune may be accompanied by organ or brass ensemble, allowing for performance in both church and concert settings.

Faure was not drawn to compose a Requiem because of the death of a loved one, even though his mother had died during the early stages of composition and his father had passed away two years before. Faure's composition does not set his Requiem to the standard liturgical text, instead adding a lyrical Pie Jesu and transcendent Paradisum, and omitting the Dies Irae and Tuba Mirum - which, for most composers, are opportunities to demonstrate the dramatic possibilities available with the choral and orchestral forces. As a result the mood of the Requiem is relatively calm and peaceful and often referred to as a lullaby of death. Faure's unconventional composition has become a firm favourite in the repertoire and available here is the vocal score, for soloists and SATB choir with piano accompaniment, as edited by Desmond Ratcliffe.

Easter Sunday, 2009, was the Sunday heard 'round the evangelical internet: NewSpring Church, the second-largest church in the Southern Baptist Convention and among the top one hundred largest churches in the US, had begun their service with the song "Highway to Hell" by hard rock band AC/DC. They had brazenly crossed the sacred/secular musical divide on the most important Sunday of the year, and commentary abounded on the value of such a step. Many were offended at the "desecration" of such a holy day, deriding Newspring as the "theater of the absurd." Others cheered NewSpring's engagement with "the culture" and suggested that music could be used to convert non-Christians. No mere debate over stylistic preferences, many expressed that foundational aspects of evangelical identity were at stake. While many books have been written about religious music that utilizes popular music styles (a.k.a. "contemporary Christian music"), there has yet to be a scholarly treatment of how and why popular, secular music is utilized by churches. This book addresses that lacuna by examining this emerging trend in evangelical and "emerging" churches in America. What is the motivation behind using music that seemingly has no connection to Christian theology, values, or themes-such as music by Katy Perry, AC/DC, or Van Halen-and what can we learn about post-denominational evangelical churches in America by uncovering these motives? In this book, April Stace uncovers several themes from an ethnographic study of these churches: the increasingly-porous boundary between the sacred and the secular, the importance placed on "authenticity" in contemporary American culture, how evangelicals are responding to what they perceive is an increasingly-secular society, the "turn to the subject" of contemporary culture, the desire to leave a space for expression of doubt in the worship service without fully authorizing that doubt, and the individualization of the construction of religious identity in the modern era.

The Politics of Verdi's Cantica treats a singular case study of the use of music to resist oppression, combat evil, and fight injustice. Cantica, better known as Inno delle nazioni / Hymn of the Nations, commissioned from Italy's foremost composer to represent the newly independent nation at the 1862 London International Exhibition, served as a national voice of pride and of protest for Italy across two centuries and in two very different political situations. The book unpacks, for the first time, the full history of Verdi's composition from its creation, performance, and publication in the 1860s through its appropriation as purposeful social and political commentary and its perception by American broadcast media as a 'weapon of art' in the mid twentieth century. Based on largely untapped primary archival and other documentary sources, journalistic writings, and radio and film scripts, the project discusses the changing meanings of the composition over time. It not only unravels the complex history of the work in the nineteenth century, of greater significance it offers the first fully documented study of the performances, radio broadcast, and filming of the work by the renowned Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini during World War II. In presenting new evidence about ways in which Verdi's music was appropriated by expatriate Italians and the US government for cross-cultural propaganda in America and Italy, it addresses the intertwining of Italian and American culture with regard to art, politics, and history; and investigates the ways in which the press and broadcast media helped construct a musical weapon that traversed ethnic, aesthetic, and temporal boundaries to make a strong political statement.

Although he is often identified as a Monteverdi scholar (Approaches to Monteverdi: Aesthetic, Psychological, Analytical and Historical Studies, published in the Variorum series in 2013), the majority of Jeffrey Kurtzman's work has focused on other sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Italian sacred music. Organized into three sections, part one begins with a chapter on the Monteverdi Mass and Vespers of 1610 which spotlights the other major work in Monteverdi's first prominent sacred print, the Missa in illo tempore, followed by examples of Kurtzman's work on the sacred music of other composers such as Giovanni Francesco Capello and Palestrina. The section concludes with a piece on polyphonic psalm structures in seventeenth-century Italian Office music. Part two includes pieces which explore the relationship between the standard clef set, the high clef set, specific Magnificat tones and sounding pitch in the Magnificats of Roman composers; the issue of polyphonic psalm antiphons and the question of vocal and instrumental substitutes for plainchant antiphons in the Vespers service; and the use of instruments in the performance of sacred music, demonstrating that the concertato style of the seventeenth century had its origins in the practice of substituting instruments for voices and doubling voices with instruments, thereby introducing multifaceted possibilities for varying sonorities through the course of a composition. Part 3 contains two articles: the first surveying various styles in the Office repertoire of the seventeenth-century based on the approximately 1500 prints of Italian Office music in Kurtzman's and Anne Schnoebelen's catalogue of Mass, Office and Holy Week Music Printed in Italy, 1516-1770. The second article, published for the first time in this volume, assesses the impact on Italian liturgical music of the Catholic reform of the second half of the sixteenth-century.

A survey of the huge importance of Thomas Tallis, the `Father of Church Music', on Victorian musical life. In Victorian England, Tallis was ever-present: in performances of his music, in accounts of his biography, and through his representation in physical monuments. Known in the nineteenth century as the 'Father of English Church Music', Tallis occupies a central position in the history of the music of the Anglican Church. This book examines in detail the reception of two works that lie at the stylistic extremes of his output: Spem in alium, revived in the 1830s, though generally not greatly admired, and the Responses, which were very popular. A close study of the performances, manuscripts and editions of these works casts light on the intersections between the antiquarian, liturgical and aesthetic goals of nineteenth-century editors and musicians. By tracing Tallis's reception in nineteenth-century England, the author charts the hold Tallis had on the Victorians and the ways in which Anglican - and English - identity was defined and challenged. Dr SUE COLE is a research associate at the Faculty of Music, University of Melbourne.

Dapha, or dapha bhajan, is a genre of Hindu-Buddhist devotional singing, performed by male, non-professional musicians of the farmer and other castes belonging to the Newar ethnic group, in the towns and villages of the Kathmandu Valley, Nepal. The songs, their texts, and their characteristic responsorial performance-style represent an extension of pan-South Asian traditions of raga- and tala-based devotional song, but at the same time embody distinctive characteristics of Newar culture. This culture is of unique importance as an urban South Asian society in which many traditional models survive into the modern age. There are few book-length studies of non-classical vocal music in South Asia, and none of dapha. Richard Widdess describes the music and musical practices of dapha, accounts for their historical origins and later transformations, investigates links with other South Asian traditions, and describes a cultural world in which music is an integral part of everyday social and religious life. The book focusses particularly on the musical system and structures of dapha, but aims to integrate their analysis with that of the cultural and historical context of the music, in order to address the question of what music means in a traditional South Asian society.

for SSATB unaccompanied Written to commemorate the centenary of the foundation of the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, Brightest Star sets a powerful text by Sean Street. The poem describes the call for assistance made by the occupied Channel Islands in 1944 and the response of the Red Cross ship, the Vega, which came to their aid, drawing parallels between this story and the light and hope of the seasons of Christmas and Epiphany. The bleak wartime conditions are portrayed by dissonant harmony and downward sliding phrases, and extracts from the Bailiff of Jersey's letter of appeal, sung by the lower voices, draw attention to the gravity of the situation. In contrast, the upper voices bring an ethereal quality to the texture, with closing phrases that are suggestive of the traditional French carol Les anges dans nos campagnes ('Angels, from the realms of glory').

Grounded in the liturgical tradition and scholarship, the author explores what he calls the "new traditionalism" that notes the recent resurgence of interest in ancient forms of liturgy and spiritual practice. Everett communicates the seriousness with which he approaches his subject by offering a brief history of psalms and an exegesis of selected psalm texts. As a composer, he speaks clearly about the process of capturing the essence of each psalm in the brief, but beautiful antiphons that accompany them. The psalter itself consists of musically notated antiphon melodies with chord symbols followed by the printed psalm textwhich is read aloud... Many alternative and emerging church communities have begun exploring ancient music and liturgical traditions despite a lack of high-quality, published liturgical music, which does not require (or even desire) an organ and a four- part choir. The Emergent Psalter serves to provide that resource. Featuring music written for two emerging communities (Transmission in New York and Church of the Apostles in Seattle), this book is an excellent resource for anyone producing alternative worship service or thinking of starting one."

This comprehensive re-evaluation of John Stainer's life and work demonstrates that there was a great deal more to admire beyond The Crucifixion. The thoroughness of the research is impressive, based on profusion of sources, many of them little used until now.... A text that carries great authority, plus (almost equally important) a new and generously annotated list of Stainer's works both musical and literary. At last, Stainer has got his due, once and for all.'NICHOLAS TEMPERLEY, Professor of Music Emeritus, University of Illinois. One of the most important musicians of the Victorianera, Stainer is known for his considerable influence as a composer of Anglican liturgical music, and his corpus of secular works - madrigals and songs - presents many surprises. He was a brilliant organist, a fine scholar, theorist, pedagogue and teacher - multifarious attributes which this study elucidates and understands as part of his wider musical personality. Stainer's life is a story of extraordinary social mobility. From lowly origins he rose to become organist of St Paul's Cathedral and Professor of Music at Oxford. Yet after his premature death in 1901 he suffered almost immediate neglect except for the popularity of a handful of works, among them I saw the Lord and The Crucifixion. In rehabilitating Stainer and the crucial contribution he made to musical life, this book examines the breadth of his work as a composer, and the important role he played in the regeneration of sacredand secular musical institutions in Victorian Britain. JEREMY DIBBLE is Professor of Music at Durham University. His previous books include studies of Parry and Stanford and he is the author of numerous articles on British music. He is currently working on a dictionary of hymnology.

One of the finest achievements of Western culture is its brilliant heritage of classical music. A Gift of Music looks at the lives of the greatest composers who have given us this heritage, and especially at how their music was shaped by their beliefs.

The result is a remarkable and inspiring book, showing the importance of Christian faith for many composers, and the effect of this upon their music. But it also shows how the lack of faith has brought profound change in the meaning and form of contemporary music.

Thus A Gift of Music seeks to open up a whole new world of music--to encourage listening to the finest compositions with new understanding and pleasure, and to stretch our ears and imaginations. It is a book which will be greatly appreciated by those who already love classical music, and by others who want to explore this delightful world for the first time.

The Oxford Choral Classics gathers together over three hundred of the world's choral masterpieces into a unique series of seven volumes that span the whole of Western choral literature. Each volume contains all of the established classics of its genre under a single cover, in authoritative new editions and at a budget price. European Sacred Music is the second volume in the series and a fabulous value for money. From the Allegri Misereri to the Victora O vos omnes, John Rutter and co-editor Clifford Bartlett have researched the best available sources and provided excellent new English singing translations and sensible, practical keyboard reductions.

Christian Music: A Global History was originally published by Lion Hudson in 2011. This new edition has been substantially extended and updated. Dr Tim Dowley's wide-ranging survey includes contributions from nine additional experts. The book covers the Jewish musical tradition; early hymns and psalms; music after Constantine; the rise of music in the Orthodox tradition; Christian chant and the core of medieval music; polyphony in the medieval and Renaissance eras; music and the Lutheran Reformation; the rise of Catholic Baroque; the development of Anglican worship; Christian music in Latin America; the Viennese tradition of liturgical and non-liturgical sacred music; sacred music in the age of Romanticism; 19th-century hymns; the steadily developing tradition of Christian music in Africa; sacred music and the concert hall; music and The Salvation Army; the rise of carols; popular church music in the 20th century; the making of the American Gospel tradition; Christian music in SE Asia; musical traditions in Australia and New Zealand, and in the Pacific Islands; Christian elements in the rise of folk and jazz; and the rise of the contemporary Christian music industry.

The fifteen studies assembled here grew out of research on south-Italian ordinary chants and tropes for the multi-volume series Beneventanum Troporum Corpus II, edited by John Boe in collaboration with Alejandro Planchart. In the present essays, clerical and ordinary chants and tropes of the Mass (especially when derived from paraliturgical hymns and poems), certain aspects of chant notation and particular facets of the old Beneventan and the old Roman chant repertories are examined in relation to the three main cultic centres of the Italian south - Benevento, Montecassino and Rome - and as they relate to their European context, namely Frankish and Norman chant and the varieties of chant sung in Italy north of Rome. The volume includes one previously unpublished study, on the Roman introit Salus Populi.

Comparative studies of medieval chant traditions in western Europe, Byzantium and the Slavic nations illuminate music, literacy and culture. Gregorian chant was the dominant liturgical music of the medieval period, from the time it was adopted by Charlemagne's court in the eighth century; but for centuries afterwards it competed with other musical traditions, local repertories from the great centres of Rome, Milan, Ravenna, Benevento, Toledo, Constantinople, Jerusalem, and Kievan Rus, and comparative study of these chant traditions can tell us much about music, liturgy, literacy and culture a thousand years ago. This is the first book-length work to look at the issues in a global, comprehensive way, in the manner of the work of Kenneth Levy, the leading exponent of comparative chant studies. It covers the four most fruitful approaches for investigators: the creation and transmission of chant texts, based on the psalms and other sources, and their assemblage into liturgical books; the analysis and comparison of musical modes and scales; the usesof neumatic notation for writing down melodies, and the differences wrought by developmental changes and notational reforms over the centuries; and the use of case studies, in which the many variations in a specific text or melodyare traced over time and geographical distance. The book is therefore of profound importance for historians of medieval music or religion - Western, Byzantine, or Slavonic - and for anyone interested in issues of orality and writing in the transmission of culture. PETER JEFFERY is Professor of Music History, Princeton University. Contributors: JAMES W. McKINNON, MARGOT FASSLER, MICHEL HUGLO, NICOLAS SCHIDLOVSKY, KEITH FALCONER, PETER JEFFERY, DAVID G.HUGHES, SYSSE GUDRUN ENGBERG, CHARLES M. ATKINSON, MILOS VELIMIROVIC, JORGEN RAASTED+, RUTH STEINER, DIMITRIJE STEFANOVIC, ALEJANDRO PLANCHART.

Biblical songs of justice, World Church songs of protest and praise and songs of experience from late 20th century Britain.

Transformation of the Industry in a Brand New Normal: Media, Music, and Performing Arts is a collection of contemporary research and interpretation that aims to discover the industrial transformation in media, music, and performing arts. Featuring coverage of a broad range of topics, including film studies, narrative theory, digital streaming platforms, subscription video-on-demand services, marketing, promotional strategies of video games, distant music practices, music ecosystems, contemporary orchestras, alternative music scenes, new voice-over techniques, changing conservatory education methods, and visual arts, this manuscript of selected chapters is designed for academics, researchers, media professionals, and students who intend to enhance their understanding of transformation in media, music, and performing arts.