In short, I had a shocker.
Did you know that there are two hymn tunes that have the same meter, are in the same key, and what’s more, start with exactly the same five notes?
My meltdown
For what it’s worth, the tunes are called Hanover and Paderborn. Well, I only found this out as I played the intro to You servants of God, your Master proclaim on a recent Sunday morning. I opened Hymns for Today’s Church at number 520 and plonked it on the organ music stand. The first five notes and their chords were fine, but when I read the sixth note, it bore no resemblance to what I was expecting to play (or that the 450 people below wanted to sing). So, with all those people set to sing their hearts out, I did what any normal person would do – my mind went into meltdown, and my fingers followed suit. I made up the rest of the intro going through a set of chords that I could only describe as garden shed jazz.
