Hymns—for Home and Church will be getting its first preview tomorrow! Back at the start of April, the Church announced that “12 hymns of the new ‘Hymns—for Home and Church’ will be available on May 30, 2024.” We already know that “Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing” will be among those (that was explicitly stated in the April announcement and has been shown in footage related to the release), but we aren’t sure what the other ones are yet. After this first release, there will be “new batches coming every few months.”
Even more recently, the icon associated with the hymnal was released, along with other information related to it, at a centralized site for the hymn book.
Part of the role-out that I am grateful to see is that the Church is working hard to provide resources to help learn the new hymns:
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/initiative/new-hymns?lang=eng
- Audio recordings are released for every title, including piano and guitar accompaniment and a melody-only vocal. Members can familiarize themselves with the new music by creating playlists within the Sacred Music app.
- The interactive sheet music on the updated Online Music Library provides tools to hear each voice part of a hymn and transpose music into new keys.
- Ward music coordinators can use the “Sacrament Meeting Hymns” tool on the Gospel Library app to program music for sacrament meeting. The tool has been updated to allow selections from the new advance release of Hymns, the current hymnbook, and the current Children’s Songbook . By using this feature, members of the congregation will have quick access from their home screen to music that is not available in the pews.
At the same time the site was updated, emails were sent out to Stake, Mission, and District Presidencies; Bishoprics and Branch Presidencies; Members of Stake and Ward Councils and their Presidencies; Members with Stake and Ward Music Callings, encouraging them to introduce the new music in local services using these resources. In particular, the Sacrament Meeting Hymns tool was mentioned as a way to help communicate hymn selections to members before meetings, thus allowing them the opportunity to learn the hymns at home.
Altogether, these are some exciting developments! And we only need to wait one more day to see the first batch.
Every hymn with guitar accompaniment? Someone needs to provide the music in tabs and chords.
People will not learn the music at home. People seldom read the lesson material ahead of time. Most of us just are not musically inclined enough to want to become familiar with the music and cannot learn to sing by trying to sing along with a recording. Ward music leaders will continue to use the same old familiar favorites and feel lucky if 1/3 of the congregation sings along. The music program has been a failure even since it discontinued the Sunday School song practice. Hardly anyone bought the recorded music from the old song book and even fewer bothered to get familiar with all the unknown songs. Me, I like hymns and played my CD of hymn book songs instead of listening to pop music. But most Mormons are not like me. Even with my lousy voice, I can sing songs from the hymn book that I have never once heard in church. Not trying to be pessimistic, just realistic.
I’m super excited! I just got called as the ward music coordinator, so as soon as the first hymns come out, you can bet that I’m going to be introducing them in church (If unfamiliar hymns, I’ll probably start by using them as a musical number). Our ward loves to sing, so this is awesome.
@ Anna,
It may be true that a lot of people won’t learn the music at home, but that’s part of the purpose of a ward choir and regular musical numbers – to introduce new music to a non-musical congregation.
Uh, it’s 5/30 somewhere. Its up.
OH my Gosh… Star Bright is Back!!!!
And It is Well With My Soul… oh my goodness
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/media/music/collections/hymns-for-home-and-church?lang=eng
I’m excited to see several of those – He is Born, Gethsemane, It is Well with My Soul, Come, Thou Fount in particular. Also, Hail the Day is apparently a sign of if Mack Wilberg does a song enough years in a row with the Choir, it ends up on the hymnbook, haha. (It is a good hymn, though).
Anna, I understand your perspective but it left me thinking Pres Hunters’s quote from his BYU devotional on Hope “Well, isn’t that a fine view of things? Sounds like we all ought to go and eat a big plate of worms.” Ha!
I am excited for the new music, I think it will be great for us (even if not everyone embraces it).
I’m hoping they changed some words to get rid of the sexism in the hymns. I’m not very optimistic though.
Jks, they gave some indications that they intended to use more inclusive language, though out of the first batch, one (“I Will Walk with Jesus”) fails in that regard.