The Old Way of Singing originated in the Church of England as a style of congregational singing without musical direction. It was characterized by a slow tempo, weakened rhythm, added or inserted pitches, and unexplained dissonances. The Protestant Reformation contributed to its development by using familiar folk tunes and discouraging professional music in worship. Over time, the Old Way diverged from its original folk origins and took on characteristics like "lining out" tunes line by line and adding ornamental notes. It eventually became unacceptable to many and was replaced by more artistically composed music, though some traditions still use forms of the Old Way today.

1. By Nicholas Temperley
Presented by Tami Hockers
THE OLD WAY OF SINGING:
ITS ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT

2. What is the Old Way of Singing?
• Originated in the Church of
England
• Also known as the
“common” or “usual” way
• Considered indigenous,
primitive and unacceptable
as a means to sing
• Sung in congregations
where there is no musical
direction
http://thechristianpundit.org/category/church-architecture/

3. Characteristics of the Old Way of Singing
•Slow tempo
•Rhythm is weakened
•Extraneous pitches appear
•Pitches coinciding with those of the
hymn tune
•Pitches inserted between the original
hymn melody
•Unexplained dissonances

4. Church Reformation
• A big contributing factor to the Old Way of singing
• Late medieval Church - people did not sing in worship, priests and
professional musicians were hired
• Reform lead by Bohemian Brethren, Lutherans, Zwinglians,
Calvanists, Anabaptists, Angelicans and Presbyterians
• Reformists used folk tunes already known and set melody to
religious text (secular to sacred)
http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/LAN/Denton/ChristChurch.shtml

5. Calvanists had good intentions…
• Were not concerned with musical effects of congregational singing
• Cared that each person sing the songs of the Bible with
understanding and from the heart
This 17th century
engraving includes
Reformed theologians.
Can you find Calvin?
Hint: he has a beard
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Calvinism

6. A quote from Henrich Bullinger, and influential
leader in the German Reformed church - 1569
• “Let no man think, that prayers sung
with man’s voice are more
acceptable to God, than if they were
plainly spoken or uttered; for God is
neither allured with the sweetness
of man’s voice, neither is he
offended, though prayer be uttered
in a hoarse or base sound. Prayer is
commended for faith and godliness
of mind, and not for any outward
show.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Bullinger#mediaviewer/File:Heinrich_Bullinger.jpg

7. The Reformed sects were suspicious
• They banned choirs, organs, instruments and counterpoint
• Zwingli ordered organs to destroyed and choirs disbanded (1527)
• Holland banned organs for worship but were still used in concerts
However…
• Constantin Huygens urged to improve
congregational singing in which he
stated, “[singing was] more like
howling and screaming than like
human singing.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantijn_Huygens#mediaviewer/File:Constantijn_Huygens01a.jpg

8. Split of Reformed Musical Practices
• Continental Reformed church’s (such as Lutherans) used the art-
music tradition – using organs, choirs, music books, and the
leadership of professional musicians
• This regulated hymnody or psalmody
• Kept up on the developments in art music
Art-Music Tradition
Old Way of Singing
• Unaccompanied congregational singing
• Made use of known folk melodies
• First psalms were sung in a lively style similar to that of folk
ballads
• Sung by all without professional/trained music leaders

9. Ballad texts were written in broadside form
• For example: very little melodic structure, no clear rhythm, can’t fit into a meter

10. Same tune – in a book published six years earlier
• Notice the tune is no longer undefined. It has a solid meter and the
rests between the lines are filled with accompaniment.

11. Compare 1565 Sternhold and Hopkins psalm 59
to the 1599 Allison psalm 59
1565  Sternhold and Hopkins
1599  Allison

12. Comparing Psalm 59
• Ward suggests that both the psalm tune and ballad represent a
“popular style hitherto unnoted” that did not long survive the
sixteenth century as far as secular music is concerned, and that
could be transformed by accompaniment into something
approximating art music.
Sternhold and Hopkins
• Sternhold and Hopkins editions were dropped out of use and had
so many misprints, they could not be used for an actual
performance
• Only four of their tunes were ever published in other psalm books

13. Oxford Tune • Simplest of all psalm tunes
• Appears in every psalmody collection
from England, Scotland or America
between 1590 and 1720
*note time signature change
and still the same beat base



14. Change in Time OVER Time
• There have been continuous devaluation of note values almost
throughout the history of music notation, and it is more likely that
the speed of singing secular folksongs had remained much the
same, while the notation appropriate to represent that speed had
changed. By contrast the psalm tunes were still shown in the same
notation, but the notes now indicate a slower speed than they had
fifty years before.
• Psalm tunes and folksongs, originally the same in style and
character, had diverged in the course of fifty or a hundred years to a
point where they no longer resembled each other!

15. WHY?
• Folksongs were often accompanied by dancing, fiddles, lutes,
clapping, stamping or other bodily movements. None of these
could be done in church
• People sang unaccompanied which lead to less confident singers
who waited for the leaders to move to the next note
• Natural “drag” developed
• Drag meant the tunes lost distinctive rhythms of the early days

16. Thomas Mathew, compiler of a psalmody
collection had noted:
…Singers in most Country Churches go quite out of rule, by drawing
out the Sound of some Notes twice or thrice longer than they ought
to do… they seem to think it makes the very finest Harmony: So have
I observ’d them in some Places to strain themselves in forcing out
some, and especially the last Note in a Line, that they have hardly had
Strength to begin again.

17. Old Way characteristic: adding notes
• Singers were ignorant of the melody and most tunes were
unrecognizable
• Thomas Walter complained that no two churches sound alike
*On the next slide you will see the tune“Southwell” written as if in a
song book and then underneath a comparible “Broken or divided”
notation of what was truly sung in churches. This is known to be the
first attempt at writing the Old Way in comparison.

19. Now back to the Oxford tune (slide 13) . The first two examples were from East,
1592, and Ravenscroft, 1621. here is a later example fo the same psalm 4 but
from Chetham in 1718.
This version shows yet another progression within Old Way that the tunes are
still sung stepwise but how ornamentation was added to the later portion of
each beat as in comparison with the baroque style which is conducive in the 17th
and 18th centuries.

20. Process of English Psalmody
Organum (parallel 4ths and 5ths)

Faburden (parallel 6/3 chords)

Cantus Firmus (6th below the chant tone)

Improvised Harmonies (professional choirs)

Printing of models of Faburden in psalm books
This process lead to the characteristics of the Old Way of Signing

21. Another Oxford Tune Comparison
• Tunes became a harmony for one another. The upper voice is the
tune Oxford and the lower voice is the tune Litchfield, but printed
together in the Playford, 1694.

22. “Lining Out”
• Another characteristic was added to the Old Way be
Presbyterianism – reading psalm line by line
• A Directory for the Publique Worship of God Throughout the Three
Kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland (London,1644) included a
section “Of Singing of Psalms” and it read:
That the whole Congregation may joyne herein, every one that can
reade is to have a Psalme book, and all others not disabled by age, or
othersie, are to be exhorted to elarn to reade. But for the present,
where many in the Congregation cannot read, it is convenient that
the Minister, or some other fit person appointed by him and the
other Ruling Officers, do reade the Psalme, line by line, before the
singing thereof.
• Before the end of the 17th century, lining out had turned into a
monotone chant

23. SINGING SERMON
• It is what it is… I have seen two priests do a singing sermon in the
Catholic tradition about 18 years ago!
• Usually lead into lining out of a psalm
• Attributed to the Great Awakening (1730 – 50)
- With the rise of the Commonwealth, the High-Church prevailed
more then the Church of England
- The Old Way became unacceptable to the middle class which were
more familiar with art music

24. Getting rid of Old Way
• Installed Organs
• Establishment of religious societies of young men who were taught
and dispersed to improve singing in smaller churches
• Parish choirs
• More artistic music – A New Version of the Psalms by Tate and Brady
and other composers like Jeremiah Clarke and William Croft
• Bass viols were introduced to help pitch
• Shapenote hymn books for easier reading

25. Old Way still the same way for some
• Mennonites still use the old way of
singing framework but with the use of
higher techniques like appropriate
harmonies and concern for correct
pitch

26. • Temperly, Nicholas. Fall 1981. “The Old Way of Singing: Its Origin and Development.”
Journal of the American Musicological Society34.
• Pictures:
• http://thechristianpundit.org/category/church-architecture/
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantijn_Huygens#mediaviewer/File:Constantijn_Huygens01a.jpg
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Bullinger#mediaviewer/File:Heinrich_Bullinger.jpg
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Calvinism
• http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/LAN/Denton/ChristChurch.shtml