| Citation |
BNL.763.003
3 Mar 1763:31 (3089)
[From] Philopsalmos. It is well known, that in most of our
country congregations, singing, which is a considerable and
(should be) ornamental part of our public worship, is
performed with a small degree of both skill and harmony. I
don't pretend to a refined taste in musick, nor to be an
adept in that science; but this I may say, without
complimenting the niceness of my ear, that the soft accents
of a well-tutor'd voice are more grateful to them, than the
discordant raucity of an immoderate large wine pipe; for
this reason it is that I sit with impatience at church
during the time in which the congregation, with disunited
voice, repeat two stanzas in the old version of David's
Psalms. I appeal to those reformers who, ( to their own
honor, as well as of the parishes in which they reside )
have lately cultivated vocal music with such success,
whether they have not been present at assemblies where music
has been so burlesqued, that they have been obliged to sing
in their own defence ( if I may so speak); it being in that
case, as in the clubs of tobacco-smoakers the party who
neglects the pipe is the greatest sufferer. But the design
of the writer of this, being rather to reform than to
ridicule that part of religious exercise, he would therefore
humbly recommend it to every unskillful querister, whom
nature hath blest with a musical pipe, but not with the art
of modulating it, that he immediately furnish himself with
Mr. Walter's, Mr. Johnston's, or some other introductory
rules, and accomplish himself in theory; or at least that he
improve in the practical part, by forming private societies
for that purpose, and communicating some notions of harmony
to his neighbours, which may be a means of restoring that
heavenly exercise to its primitive design, of delighting the
ear, and exciting the soul to devotion. The writer would
beg leave, (with all due deference to the Reverend pastors
of our churches ) to propose this query, viz. Whether
sitting be not rather a posture of indolence, than humility
or adoration; and consequently, whether the praises of our
creator might not as decently be sung in some attitude
nearer resembling devotion [in mss]
[signed] E K
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