On Fri, Sep 6, 2013 at 12:59 PM, David Rogers <davidandrewrog...@gmail.com>wrote:
> > In practical terms, Carl's and my hymn books may in fact be considered > correct, because in many churches and/or church-music traditions, the > congregation is expected to sing in unison most of the time, the choir > in SATB if there is a choir, and there will (almost invariably) be an > organist/keyboard player. It may be that the notation chosen is a > compromise to minimize inconvenience for everyone, according to how much > they use the notation and how closely they read it - i.e. "all those > notes" are primarily for the keyboard, and a choir will have little > trouble reading four-part keyboard music. This might not be the case in > traditions where the custom is for everyone to sing SATB without > instruments. > > Actually, I fit into this last category :). All of our music is sung congregationally, with full SATB harmony (though portions of some songs are written to be sung in unison, or with only a couple of parts), without instruments. That being said, the original reasoning may have been adapted from hymnals that use keyboard reductions. The current reasoning (other than "that's the way we've always done it," and the hymnals I've looked at span some 100 years), is that all the extra stems get in the way of reading the music. This is the same motivation behind pointing stems away from the lyrics, so that there's less "noise" between the words and the notes.
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