Hereford Diocese conducts massive survey of church service music

Every Church in the Diocese of Hereford is being encouraged to take part in a massive survey of music in the area. Music Sunday is taking place this weekend and every parish is being asked to record musical details of all their services.

Hereford Cathedral’s Assistant Organist, Peter Dyke who is one of the organisers, said: "Every Sunday in hundreds of churches across Herefordshire, Shropshire and our parishes in Wales and Worcestershire, hymns, songs, psalms and anthems are sung and organ music and other instrumental pieces are played to help enrich the worship.”

Music Sunday is a Royal School of Church Music (RSCM) designation which encourages Churches to celebrate usually by holding special concerts and events. The Hereford Diocesan branch of RSCM decided that a unique ‘snapshot’ of music making across the Diocese will inform organisers of how best they might meet the needs of small village church choirs in what is the most rural part of England.

Parishioners will be asked to complete and submit online details of all the music sung in church that day, whether by choir, congregation or soloist, and all instruments used. The survey will also ask which hymn books were used and who the composers were. “It will ask who led the music, the number of people involved and how many of these are under 18.”

"We would like to know what hymns or songs are sung that day, along with details of any organ pieces, choir items or instrumental music, including improvising, and hope to be able to publish the summarised results in The NEWSpaper, our diocesan publication," added Mr Dyke. “We want to celebrate the richness and diversity of this vast pool of talent, effort and goodwill which we believe is there but we hope this survey will confirm."

A new area called Music in Our Churches has been developed on the Diocesan website to encourage electronic submission and that will help publicise further what already exists in the 400 churches that make up the Diocese of Hereford. A Training Scheme for organists of all abilities already exists locally and it is hoped the information gathered on Music Sunday will identify further pupils.

“The RSCM encourages celebratory special events on this particular Sunday and if you check their website you will find a whole host of good things happening all over the country,” said Mr Dyke. “We could have done the same but decided to celebrate all that happens in our churches and hopefully have this unique picture of a day in the musical life of the Diocese.”