Gibbons: Choral and Organ Music
Gibbons is often better represented in the hymn book than in the serious music of a service - and this CD helps demonstrate why that's a shame. With a mix of verse and full anthems, plus both sets of Mag and Nunc, and a smattering of organ music it gives a good picture of Gibbons' church output. If you like the sound of madrigals, you'll like some of the church music, but there are also works in here to rival more heavy duty compositions - Out of the deep, for example. Both evening services are fun - the contemplative verse settings of the second service and the livelier short service.
More and more churches are having to face up to the fact that they have no organist or music group to accompany hymns and worship songs. For that matter, many smaller organs are getting beyond repair, and it's difficult to raise the many thousands of pounds required to replace them.
There are now a range of accompaniment alternatives for hymns and worship songs. It ought to be stressed that these are never as good as having a live musician - they are inevitably inflexible and a little mechanical in feel - but they're a lot better than nothing.
There are four main options available: CDs, MP3s, MIDI players and electronic hymnals.
CD accompaniments
CDs provide the cheap and cheerful option. You can obtain a reasonable library for less than £40. You will, of course, need a player (this will need a fair amount of power - you can't expect a congregation to sing along to a portable), and CDs have some limitations - you will have to fiddle around and find the right track each time, they may not have the number of verses you want, and there is no flexibility in terms of speed or pitch. However, the sound quality on CDs is much better than that of MIDI players (see below) - depending on the recording, it can be a real church organ.
If you don't want singing, just accompaniment, the best value route to a library is our range of accompaniment CDs played on a pipe organ by John Keys, organist at Nottingham University and St. Mary's Church, Nottingham. Our general set contains 138 tracks on six CDs, and is superb value at £37.99 including p&p - click here for more detail, including a full track list, or to order a copy. John has also recorded an additional set of 49 popular hymns, two excellent Christmas carol accompaniment CDs at just £10.99 each including p&p, a CD of hymns for Remembrance (including the Last Post and Reveille and various national anthems), a double album of hymns and voluntaries for weddings, supplements for US tunes, US Anglican, Methodist and Seventh Day Adventist churches - click here for more details of all CDs.
An alternative is Kevin Mahew's 'No Organist? No problem!' CDs. There are two 10 CD sets of 200 general hymns at around £99 each (the second has a lot more 20th century hymns) and single CD selections, some for special times of year like Lent and Easter or for Weddings. Available in both Catholic and non-Catholic versions.
The organ playing isn’t up to the quality of the John Keys CDs, but Mahew is particularly good if you use Songs of Fellowship or other worship song collections, where Mahew also has 'No Music Group? No problem!' CDs to cover your requirement.
Follow the links below to get a full list of tracks on each set, or to order them:
- No Music Group, No Problem! - 200 worship songs for those without a band at around £125
- No Organist, No Problem! 2 - 200 hymn set at around £99
- No Pianist for Assembly, No Problem! - 150 children’s hymns and religious songs at around £90
- No School Music? No Problem! - 150 popular songs for schools (not church music) at around £99
- No Music for the Early Years? No problem! - 140 nursery songs (not church music) £90
- No Praise Music for Kids, No Problem! - 150 traditional and contemporary praise songs for children at around £99
- Other ‘No Organist’ and ‘No Music Group’ products
No Organist?
If you would prefer backing for traditional hymns with a more modern instrumental feel, see Redstone Music's Hymns and Carols CDs. The backing tracks are sequenced, so can have a slightly mechanical tempo, but the instrumental sound is good. Note that not all the tracks have the melody clearly played on volumes 1 and 2, so aren't all suitable for congregational use.
It's also worth taking a look at the Small Church Music Site which has a wide range of MP3s available on organ, piano, keyboard and small band. The performances are variable - some good, some less so - but many of the tracks are free and you can search by song, tune name, metre and more. Songs still in copyright cost 20 US cents each.
If you suspect your congregation is going to need some voices on the CD to sing along with try the set of New English Hymnal recordings from Priory Records. See our dedicated page for full lists of which hymns are on which CD.
If you prefer Hymns Ancient and Modern, Cantoris Records has a set of 200 hymns on CD that can be bought a CD at a time for £14.95, or £169 for all 15 CDs. Each hymn is recorded with choir and organ, and includes the essential playover to get the congregation up to speed.
If you don't want a comprehensive library, there are individual CDs of hymns with singing in our CD section.
MIDI files and players
Next up in the price bracket are MIDI files and players. MIDI files are computer files that contain the information an electronic instrument needs to play a song. Because they only contain instructions and not the sounds themselves, they are very compact and very flexible. MIDI files can be played on almost all modern computers, many electronic keyboards and standalone MIDI file players. If you decide to use a computer or a keyboard you will probably need to plug it into a sound system to give it enough power to be heard by the congregation. Follow this link to see examples of standalone MIDI players. There is a very wide range of MIDI accompaniments (over 1,000) available from the Worship Downloads site. Using MIDI files is more complicated to use than CDs - consider CDs as well.
Finding MIDI files
If you decide to go with a MIDI player you will need files of the hymns. These are commercially available, but there are also a range of online sources from which you can freely download hymn files. Here are a few choice locations:
- Lutheran-Hymnal.Com A good collection of traditional and more folky hymns. Accompaniments of traditional hymns often piano and rather slow (some MIDI players will let you change speed etc.)
- The Cyber Hymnal Over 2,700 hymns, complete with lyrics and details of their authors. Lots of information, but the MIDI files themselves are often rather soupy arrangements and not necessarily good for accompaniment.
- The Hymn Site Mainly traditional hymns; allows you to hear the same hymn in piano, organ or bell arrangements.
Electronic Hymnals
Almost the ultimate option, electronic hymnals are pre-programmed, specialist MIDI file players that already contain a vast range of hymns. The big advantage is that they enable you to set up the hymns for a service just how you want them - number of verses, speed, pitch, amens at the end or not - then set each hymn going by remote control, ideal if the person taking the service doesn't have a helper. The downside is cost - these devices are well over a thousand pounds/dollars. They are also more complicated to use that CDs - quite a few parishes who have electronic hymnals also use CDs when they need a quick hymn or two without the fuss of setting up the machine, so consider CDs as well. But the fact remains these electronic hymnals are very versatile. For information on Digital Hymnal, the best known of these products, follow this link for the UK and this link for the US.
Robot Organist - the POS Key Playing System
We thought until recently that electronic hymnals were the ultimate for those without an organist - but it seems such a waste if you have an organ, but no one to play it. Now a company based in Lincolnshire, England has started building what are in effect robot organists - a device that sits above an organ keyboard, and plays the keys, controlled by a midi file. This gives the flexibility of an electronic hymnal, but with a true organ sound, making use of your actual physical organ. These devices, properly the "POS Key Playing System" don't come cheap at £2,800+VAT - but they are custom built for your organ. (The system is removable, so a human can play if available.) The device reads MIDI files from floppy discs - you can make your own, but it comes with four discs featuring 100 hymns, voluntaries, short pieces and "in and out" voluntaries. It also has a remote control, so it can be used without anyone by the organ. For more information, contact Pipe Organ Services, email pipeorganservices@yahoo.co.uk or by phone +44-(0)7831-767241 or by fax +44-(0)1400-281499. As with all MIDI solutions, a CD can sometimes be easier for a quick tune (or if you have a daughter church with a different organ) - consider CDs as well.
MP3 accompaniments
If you have the facility to play MP3 files, the sound quality can be almost as good as a CD and you will usually have more flexibility in the way you play them. You will need either a computer connected to your sound system or an MP3 player/iPod. You then have access to your entire library, and can set up a play list for a particular service to instantly access the right tracks in the right order. The only downside is a slight degradation in sound quality compared with CDs.
All our hymn accompaniment tracks and voluntaries (see above) are available as MP3s - see our MP3s page. You can also order any of our CDs in MP3 form at a reduced cost - just drop us an email at info@cul.co.uk with details of which CDs you want and we’ll give you a price - or our entire library is available on MP3 CDs or a single DVD at much less than buying all the CDs.
Some of Kevin Mahew’s products are also available on MP3. These are sold on an iPod - this sounds good, but there may be some difficulties adding to the library afterwards. It’s probably better to set up your own MP3 player.
Then there is Hymp3. They have a library of 198 hymns played on a pipe organ (by the excellent organist Dr Francis Jackson), plus 94 worship songs played on piano. Like our individual tracks service, you can pick any selection of tracks to download for 99p each.
It's also worth taking a look at the Small Church Music Site which has a wide range of MP3s available on organ, piano, keyboard and small band. The performances are variable - some good, some less so - but many of the tracks are free and you can search by song, tune name, metre and more. Songs still in copyright cost 20 US cents each.
If you prefer piano to organ, there are over 200 hymns on offer at the Your Church Pianist site. They are competitively priced and very easy to access, indexed by church seasons and themes. You can hear a sample of each track on the site. Some are a little slow, and choirs won’t necessarily get the UK standard harmonies (or UK tunes - Love Divine, for example is to Beecher). But the accompaniments are well played and include the all-important introduction.