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Notes on Hymn Copyright

Notes on Copyright

Why copyright hymns?

There is an argument which says that if you write hymns for the church they should be freely available. In principle I have no problem with that at all. But…

All of my hymns are in copyright. So why?

The main reason for copyright is to prevent others altering what you write? Say you have a hymn of praise to Jesus. How would you feel if it was altered to praise to Satan? – with your name attached…
Alteration can be major or minor. At the very least you can ask people not to alter your text without permission, or publish, or use your writing, or music, in contexts of which you would not approve, or want to be associated with.
You may, over time, alter your words and not want previous versions to be used. Again, you have control.

Levels of copyright

Your copyright can say ‘may be used freely’ or ‘used freely with permission’.
It can say ‘may be used freely in particular contexts’ – eg., church – but that wider or commercial use requires permission.
A few authors rely on royalties for their living. Copyright and fees become intrinsic. Even then items may be free in certain settings. All of my texts are copyright but I certainly don’t make a living from writing. Many of my texts have been used by, or commissioned by, charities. You can choose whether particular use is allowed or requires a charge.
Even when a charge is taken you can decide whether a royalty is then donated by you to charity.
Today many hymns that are in copyright are licenced for church or education use through Christin Copyright Licencing (CCL) or other licensing bodies.

Types of copyright

Personal copyright. You set the wording. You administer anything to do with he copyright. You retain all benefits in the copyright. On your death benefits would usually revert to your Executor, or whomsoever you designate in your will.
Copyright held by another. In this instance, with a reputable company, you will be consulted on use of the item that diverges from anything you have agreed with the administrator/owner. You will have a legal contract defining your rights and expectations together with those of the owner.

The benefits here may seem minimal, but can sometimes be substantial. I have a large number of hymns. My copyright holder deals with requests for use, changes of wording (in consultation with me), legal questions (rare, but could include allegations of accidental plagiarism for example), receiving royalites when texts, or music, are used and paying royalties to me, less an agreed proportion which is theirs. The copyright holder is responsible for safe retention of my material. In addition my copyright holder has promoted and published my hymns in ways that I never could have done on my own. On my death my hymns remain available and secure.

Giver of life, of breath, of bread – a hymn by a friend who describes it as ‘perennially topical’

Giver of life, of breath, of bread - Doug Constable

Giver of life, of breath, of bread,
from whose self-giving souls are fed,
from whom we learn the priceless worth
of every creature born on earth:

hear the poor prayers of aching hearts
weighed down by conscience-piercing darts;
for You command Your love’s good will:
no ifs no buts, Thou shalt not kill.

Self-sacrificing Christ, you grieve
 both for the dead and folks who leave
their hearts at home, who take up guns,
who let bombs fall on helpless ones.

Spirit, whose strength springs fresh from High,
comfort all victims marked to die;
relieve each soul found in distress;
curb all who’d rather curse than bless.

On those, unmoved by war’s alarms,
who profit by the sale of arms,
drop fires of purging faith, to burn
all fears to ash in love’s safe urn.

Merciful God, Beginning, End,
Saviour-Redeemer, sinner’s friend,
war-ending Spirit, breathing peace:
 weep with us till death-dealing cease ...

© Doug Constable  17.9 to 15.6.2024

Suggested tune: RIVAULX

Thank you Doug - sadly needful

What can we sing in a distorted world? – Written for ArtServe and originally published in the Methodist Recorder (March 2024)

What can we sing in a distorted world?

Language and music are taut and strained. How can we compress into a phrase a modern pieta, or a father cradling body parts?

What can we sing?

We stand in the rubble of a distorted world where dust never settles, light filters through, flickering, faulted. Shadows lengthen.

Creation is cloaked by human action, or indifference.

And, again, what can we sing?

Perhaps we should be silent?

It has been said that there can be no poetry after Auschwitz. And we turn up on Sunday morning to offer praise and thanksgiving or, expecting a still, small voice, a gentle stroll beside still waters. Have we forgotten? Perhaps. Or are we too young? Since October the seventh our slumbering memories have been re-awakened. And what do we sing? At times like these I wonder at the inability of our Christian churches to lament. Its absence in these times should shock.

I turn to two Psalms, one communal; one individual.

Psalm 137

By the rivers of Babylon—

there we sat down and there we wept

when we remembered Zion.

The nearest we get to these words, a reprise of Boney M singing ‘By the rivers of Babylon’. Notice they never use verses 8 and 9:

Happy shall they be who pay you back

what you have done to us!

Happy shall they be who take your little ones

and dash them against the rock!

Like a hybrid car shifting gear they move to something more comfortable: May the words of my lips and the meditation of my heart…’ They want something deemed ‘acceptable’.

Think of the horror of war, images that can’t be broadcast for what they portray. What would we feel? Might we not want vengeance? This Psalm says that such emotions are legitimate, human. How can we admit this in our churches? We need to know that we are still held by God when we have witnessed acts of deepest hatred and want to hit back, to wreak havoc.

But a warning. The Psalmist grasps this yet it can never be a justification for repeating the horror, simplistically, ‘because the Bible tells us so’. An ‘eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth’ should be consigned to the past.

Psalm 22

‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me’.

This is personal, now. The cry we hear from the cross, from the lips of Jesus, words of a Psalm uttered in desperation in the throes of death: words just for Good Friday? They are strong enough for a hymn writer to pen: ‘the Father turns His face away’. And sometimes it feels like that. Yet God does not turn away, will not leave us in distress. Nevertheless, we may still feel the reality of personal desolation. If the Psalmist felt this emotion, and Jesus expressed it, then it is common to humanity and not to be condemned. It is cry of wretchedness though not a matter of doubt, rather of supreme faith. That is the foundation lament, a certainty of the presence of God with us in spite of all, even in persecution or impending death. We only complain when our expectations are not met – a train is late, food has gone mouldy, a friend lets us down. In faith we have expectations of God, God with us, always, in every circumstance or situation. Yet sometimes we feel desolate, abandoned, as though God has gone away. And then we too can lament, we can groan from the depths of our being. And at such times we utter the deepest, most sincere prayer we may ever voice, ‘God help me!’ This is no blasphemy, but a heartfelt, visceral cry of need undergirded by a subconscious sense that when all else is absent, there is a name on whom we can call.

So what music, what language, can we borrow, can we use? Perhaps Gorecki’s Third Symphony? Or a hymn like this? – ‘When loneliness oppresses me’ from Hymns of Hope and Healing/Unravelling the Mysteries sung, maybe, to KINGSFOLD?

1	When loneliness oppresses me; 
	when darkness fills my soul; 
	when grief and weeping overwhelm 
	and none can make me whole; 
	in angry fear I call to you.
	When will you hear my cry? 
	This heavy burden on my heart 
	must lift, or else I die.
	
2	When close companions melt away, 
	afflictions have no end, 
	I cry for help to empty air, 
	darkness my only friend. 
	O God, why have you left me here? 
	When will my troubles cease? 
	If you refuse to hear my prayer, 
	how will I find release?

Hymn - Marjorie Dobson
© Copyright 2012 Stainer & Bell Ltd, London, www.stainer.co.uk. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Dan Damon – Look at the light

I met Dan in Boston (Massachusetts) over 20 years ago. An American Methodist Pastor with four items in Singing the Faith – too few to my mind. You can find him at Dan Damon Music . His latest collection Look at the light, can be found here but also on other streaming services.

This is religious music with intelligent texts and with a jazz setting.

Transcendent tunes…The music of the spheres?

I was sitting in a fellowship group some years ago. We took turns at leading it. On one occasion a member of the group chose some music. I’d not heard it before – Saint Saens 3^rd Symphony, the Organ Symphony. I closed my eyes and found myself transported by the music to, what I can only describe as, a spiritual plane. In my mind I was somewhere other than the simple room in which we were sitting. And for me, this was worship.

At the centre of worship is the expectation of meeting with God, that which is other than ourselves. It is incomprehensible that such a meeting should leave us untouched. Years later I used this same music with images of nebulae from the Hubble Telescope to imagine and reflect on creation. My intention was to engender something transcendent and, for me, that is the essence of worship. Every act of worship should be predicated on that possibility, the expectation, of just such an encounter.

But what music should I choose? Just what music is sacred?

On another occasion, in another place, I wanted to introduce the topic of spirituality in music. As the group were assembling I played a piece by Giacinto FrancescoMaria Scelsi. He was Italian and best known for composing music based around only one pitch as in his Quattro pezzi su una nota sola (‘Four Pieces on a single note’, 1959, you can find it on YouTube). To me it seemed discordant. A person walked in and simply exclaimed, ’what beautiful music’! Not all music has the effect that you expect!

I was asked on one occasion which Rolling Stones’ track could be used for someone’s father’s funeral. My response, partly facetiously, was ‘anything but Sympathy for the Devil’. They had asked because the music of the Stones linked them immutably with ‘Dad’. For them, for this moment, it was right, appropriate, religious to my mind. But we are conservative and held captive to tradition.

A few weeks ago the person leading worship in our local Methodist Church chose to use: Richard Bewes, hymn based on Psalm 46[1] ‘God is our strength and refuge’. This is set to THE DAMBUSTERS’ MARCH. For many the tune will make us think of Lancaster Bombers breaking dams with bouncing bombs in the Ruhr in the Second World War. For some that precludes the use of this tune.

But should it? Just what music is sacred? Albert Blackwell in The Sacred in Music[2]suggests that no music is inherently religious, or secular. Our feelings in relation to music come, not from the music itself, but from the things which we associate with it, images linked to it, the occasion when we heard it, the words sung to it. So the music of a hymn, as much as the words, can produce feelings which are positive or negative.

It appears that, for the most part, the editors of the Methodist Hymn Book (1933) were conservative rather than innovative. Following the Great War there was a great need to regain the equilibrium that had been lost. There is comfort to be found in those things that are familiar and safe. Edwardian and Victorian music predominated, rather than the contemporary music of the 1930s. While that is understandable it is also a block to progress in the field of hymnody, textually and musically. Anyone who has tried to use Erik Routely’s ABINGDON to ‘And can it be’, for which it was written, rather than SAGINA, which is too triumphant for the meditative open lines, will have felt that resistance.

Past experience and present context will enable one person to gain a sense of the ‘other’ from music that will leave a different person cold. What works for one may be intensely unhelpful for another. Different learning styles, traditions and expectations frame our ability to participate, or prevent such participation. How often do we take this into account when we lead, or curate worship, when we choose music? Perhaps we should think on that when we select our hymns, or the music, recorded or otherwise, used in worship. And even silent prayer is, perhaps sometimes better left silent, than accompanied by music which may bring to mind unhelpful associations, or which may jar; veiling that religious atmosphere which it is our task to engender.

Is it sometimes right that we simply hear God’s still, small voice?

Rev Dr Andrew Pratt – originally published in the Methodist Recorder for ArtServe

[2] Blackwell, A., The Sacred in Music (1999) Lutterworth Press.