7/11/21: in honour of ‘Psalm Praise’

‘Psalm Praise’ was published in 1973, much at the same time as I started as a child chorister at the church where my father was a young vicar (senior pastor). The front cover is remarkably unassuming:

As its name suggests, it is mostly settings of Psalms, including a small number of Anglican chants, most of its contents being metrical psalms, ie. settings of psalms in the form of hymns.

So far, so unremarkable. Yet at the time it was hugely controversial. I was too young to be aware of this, but my father introduced it to his church against considerable opposition, with people very attached to traditional forms of Anglican worship and not wanting to change. Thank you for standing firm, Dad!

Meanwhile, ‘Psalm Praise’ includes some beautiful settings of psalms, some of which, to my knowledge, still get sung occasionally, but many which are not. Which I think is a shame! And delighted to take delivery yesterday of some stuff which I sent from the UK, including my piano! So I have decided finally to do something which I have been thinking about for a while, which is to make recordings of songs from ‘Psalm Praise’, initially my favourites, then I’ll see where to go from there.

So, I have almost everything I need. I am happy that my keyboard playing tasks are up to the task. I have the camera and other recording equipment I need. I have a video editor standing by – thank you, Elijah! Just one thing, though – I am very aware that I am not a very good singer, not at all. I can mask this to some extent by accompanying myself – but only to a small extent. So, if you’re reading this and think this would be a good thing to do, please let me know, I can send you mp3 files of me playing, I would love to have your help!

I’ve added a section to my YouTube channel, “A Minute a Day to Pray” for this purpose. Expecting to replace this recording with one after Elijah has worked on it, but wanted to get on and make a start. As always, really interested to know what you think! Thank you for reading!