the music of Soul

Mary Baker Eddy has quite a lot to say about music. Here is one thought from her collected writings:

"Music is the harmony of being; but the music of Soul affords the only strains that thrill the chords of feeling and awaken the heart's harpstrings."

          Mary Baker Eddy. 'Extract from my first address in The Mother Church May 26, 1895', Miscellaneous Writings 1883-1896, p. 106: 28-30.

We don't have to have had musical training in order to sing out in praise to God, in church...or at home. Tuning in to song must be a natural talent: children sway and dance to music, as young as a few months. Music is movement of thought and body.

How wonderful then, to sing the lilting, joyous 9/8 rhythm of hymn 554 "One by one" as well as the jaunty, off-beat syncopation of hymn 548 "O Tender, Loving Shepherd".

And what widening scope for inspiration is given to us in the new offerings springing from hymn 119 ("Holy Spirit, source of gladness"). Hymn 549 "O thou joyful, O thou blessed" gives us not only new words, but also reinvents the Sicilian melody from a smooth minor key into a bright flowing major key; while hymn 495 "Holy Spirit, source of gladness" retains the words but presents a whole new melody which slides alternately from 6/4 to 3/2 time 4 times over the course of a mere 8 bars, pushing the melody briskly forward to each succeeding idea, and giving such a satisfying new beauty to the familiar words.

Julie Swannell