2024, Gatherings, Music, Songs, Uncategorized, Words

Musical Ear

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We have a new assistant pastor at our Lutheran Church who is working out rather nicely. She is good with youth, preaches good sermons, and is fitting in well with the congregation. There is only one problem, and that is her lack of musicality.

Our pastors sing much of the of the liturgy, and to do that the they have to know to listen to the note the organist gives them to start on the chant. Our new pastor can’t carry a tune in a bucket. No matter how emphatic the organist is in giving the note, the new pastor invariably starts on a pitch three notes below where she should start, and can’t seem to read the intervals between the notes to sing the chant correctly. The liturgy is such that the pastor sings, then the congregation comes in on a pitch based on where the pastor leaves off. We now have to listen for a prompt from the organist to know what our pitch is.

It would be fine with me if our new pastor read the liturgy instead of singing it, but I guess in Lent things need to be sung. We are all suffering through these forty days together!

How are you at singing a capella? What are your favorite metaphors and idioms?

34 thoughts on “Musical Ear”

      1. i’m pretty much done in the kitchen, so I’m taking a break and loading up on the ibuprofen. Now that I’ve stopped moving, the aches and pains are starting to make themselves known!!

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  2. In my mind, I’m a rock-apella star. 😉 In reality, I think I sing just well enough for a listener to recognize the song. But I have no vocal training, so it’s very amateurish.

    As a writer, I love metaphors but shy away from many because they often come across as cliche`. So my favorite metaphor is the one I create for a specific scene or moment.

    There are too many good idioms for me to pick a favorite.

    Chris in Owatonna

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  3. Oh, this is my forte – through no fault of my own, I can sing on key once I know the starting note (this is called relative pitch; I don’t have perfect pitch, where you can just pick, say, a C# out of thin air). And I’ve had lots of training in sight reading, etc.

    I do have favorite metaphors, but it will take a while here for me to come up with one…

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    1. I also have relative pitch and am a very good sight reader (both singing and for piano). I’m glad I don’t have perfect pitch…it would probably drive me crazy when listening to amateur singers who don’t have that gift. A couple folks I know who have perfect pitch are highly critical of other singers.

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  5. Ah, and I just realized that mine above are similes, not metaphors. From Merriam Webster:

    • Similes use “like” or “as” to draw a direct comparison between subjects.

    • Metaphors replace the literal meaning of one subject with something else.

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    1. Y’all need a cantor.

    2. Maybe y’all need some simpler service music, too.

    3. I can’t cant, but if ya’ contact me, I’ve written lots of the stuff, you’ll just have to adjust the words you sing in the liturgy.

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  10. I guess I’m okay at singing a capella. I think I was better when my voice was younger. I have a very good ear, and I had some ear training while at St. Olaf. I’ll do it ‘once in a blue moon,’ but it does give me ‘butterflies in my stomach.’

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