Music at St Mary le Tower in 2020

Music is such a fundamental part of worship in our churches. It allows the congregation to participate, invites people to pray and settles their mind ready for worship. Music can give words meaning, preparing the congregation for each stage of the service, conferring a sense of inclusivity and enhancing scripture. Just as children are often taught important information via song, music aids memory and connects with the soul. It is comforting, reassuring, and heightens our emotional involvement in worship. It is also a fundamental expression of joy and as such should be the foundation for praising God!

Photo by David Beale on Unsplash

CHOIR

During lockdown our choir met regularly via Zoom, with chorister and choral scholar singing lessons, music theory and Christian education continuing. Multiple recordings were made and multi-tracked to maintain a musical output during the unprecedented closure of the church. These recordings are available via our YouTube channel and are the result of a significant amount of hard work. It was an odd time; recording to click tracks at home is certainly different from the norm. Our choir is like a big family, and everyone looked out for each other throughout this time with a WhatsApp group for social contact - we even managed a weekly adult social via Zoom! 

Once restrictions relaxed our choir was split into two smaller choirs, to allow for social distancing. A seven page document with instructions for choir members around maintaining distancing and enhanced hygiene procedures was issued at the end of August, and a lengthy, in depth risk assessment was circulated before the resumption of rehearsals and sung services. The choir have adapted extremely well to these new measures, in no small part due to the inspirational leadership of our music director, Christopher Borrett. We were providing four sung services each week, with larger services ticketed to ensure social distancing and hope to continue where we left off once the second lockdown is over. 

Below is "Duo Seraphim" by Guerrero, recorded over lockdown by our choral scholars. You can read more about the composer here. Sung at home and recorded by our choral scholars from multiple schools, I'm sure you will agree it's quite an achievement.

The BELFRY

Our Bell Ringers have also been busy, maintaining as full a service as possible for services, despite the current restrictions. As Jonathan Williamson writes:-

"When we ring, we ring as a team (we use the word “band”). Modern technology enables “virtual” ringing, but it’s just not the same as a band of 8, 10 or 12 ringers ringing together on the super bells that “The Tower” is blessed with. We were able to recommence service ringing on Sunday 26th July. Social Distancing Requirements meant that we were only able to ring 4 bells but after 4 months of nothing it was surely sensible to begin by (as it were) dipping our toes back in the shallow end! Distances between our ropes are sufficiently tight that we are prevented from ringing all the bells but, with couples from the same household not required to socially distance and therefore able to ring adjacent bells, we can manage 6 bells now, in 3 pairs. We had to choose precisely which bells to ring quite carefully as we were keen to ring permutations that were still pleasing to the ear. The 2 combinations we use for 6 bells are 3, 4, 7, 8, 11, 12 with 1, 4, 5, 8, 9, 12 (1 and 12 being next to each other) as the alternative. It all depends who is able to ring and whether we have a couple capable of handling the two biggest bells in the tower of 25¼cwt and 35¾cwt the latter of which is about the weight of a Ford Galaxy or a Javan Rhinoceros (I checked…). Currently a maximum of 6 ringers may ascend the tower on a Sunday morning with masks, hand sanitiser, rope sanitiser and a strict regime of who touches what when we are there. "

Check back on 29th November at 6pm for an article on George Pipe, and his newly published biography.

St Mary le Tower in the sunshine this summer.