I have like 5 recent posts still in draft form which I ought to publish, but those all seem long and I wanted something to the point. The sooner I publish, the sooner Shel Silverstein will disappear from the top of my blog. Such a scary guy.
On Saturday, we had a Relief Society Christmas workshop. After the luncheon, they put together a little program which ended with us singing "Joy to the World." As I played it, I noticed that most people knew the first verse pretty well. But after the "rejoice rejoice" part of the 2nd verse, things fell apart. 1/3 of the women sang the 2nd verse, 1/3 sang the 4th verse, and 1/3 just kind of moved their mouths to the melody. It sounded great.
Then came the 3rd verse. Great, I thought. We all know this one starts out "No more will sin . . ." and then people should be able to figure it out from there. Nope. They didn't even start out there. It took just a few notes before the only sound was coming from the piano. That and people shouting, "We don't know this song! Stop playing!" Yeah. So I ended playing as gracefully as I could and scampered back to my seat, laughing.
Isn't it funny? We all proclaim how much we love Christmas songs, yet how many of us actually know more than one verse of the popular ones? I doubt I do. Maybe that will be a goal of mine this Christmas -- know all the words of at least half the Christmas hymns in the hymnbook. Wish me luck!
This is funny, because I'm on the planning committee for our ward Christmas party and we were trying to think of a song that everyone knew, so we wouldn't have to print off music for everyone. It became a huge debate between some of the women because about the only song they thought everyone would be able to sing was "Jingle Bells" which is not not "churchy." Some women felt it was inappropriate to sing non-religious Christmas songs at a church function and it got kind of ugly.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, that's beside the point, the ironic part about the women fighting to sing "Jingle Bells" is that I bet if you asked them, they couldn't even sing it all the way through. "A day or two ago...." and on is not really a popular part. Unless a Christmas song only has one verse, chances are, very few can sing it all the way through off the top of their heads. :)
Maybe "Away in a Manger?"...
Still through the cloven skies they come with mmmmmmm wings unfurled mmmmmmmmmmmm weary world
ReplyDeleteI was able to sing all 4 verses of "Joy to the World" without a hymnbook Monday morning, but it helped a little that other people had hymnbooks so I could listen to them.
Leslie, peaceful wings unfurled, but I would have to look up the other part. I think I have memorized most of the Christmas Carols, and then you throw me a curve ball. I did fairly well on "Once in Royal David's City," on Sunday, but hearing others sing from the hymnal helped. Kyra, I love "Far, Far Away on Judea's Plains, too. Just learned that "Silent Night," originally had six (or was it seven) verses. "And still their heavenly music floats, o'er all the weary world." I looked it up.
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