Church leaders meet to go over the proposed lease from Neighborly Services for the Adult Day Care at the church. Thank you so much Patti Cooksey, Bill Parsons, and Earl Waters for working on this!
And why haven’t we been meeting outside before?
Something different this morning! It’s not found in any hymnal although it should be; rather, it’s a Native American hymn traditionally sung to the four directions in the morning by the women of the community. The arrangements and orchestrations are my own. I’ve done several settings–orchestra, solo piano, and choir–the first two of which are presented here.
“Wendeyaho” is often described as a “Cherokee Morning Song.” However discussion of it on the Internet indicates that the word, “Wendeyaho,” is not contemporary Cherokee, although it may have its origins in an ancient form of the language. The translation I was able to piece together from various internet sources is as follows:
Translation – We n’ de ya ho
Freely translated: “A we n'” (I am),
“de” (of),
“Yauh” –the– (Great Spirit),
“Ho” (it is so).
First, here is my orchestral arrangement.
And, here is the piano solo arrangement. Feel free to download the 2 page sheet music PDF from THIS LINK so you can play it at home, yourself. You need to do some tricky shifting of hands to cover all the parts in the last two variations, but it’s doable, I promise.
Just a reminder that the complete collection of these hymn recordings is available for free listening (streaming) at https://soundcloud.com/hilton-kean-jones/sets/hymns-at-lakewood. When each new recording is posted on the church website, it is also added to this album.
This recording is named, not for the first line of the hymn as is customary, but for the tune name. Each tune in the hymnal has its own name irrespective of the words that are sung to it.
Further, each tune is described by the number of notes (sort of…) in each phrase of the melody. Tunes are then organized in a metrical index. Some of the metrical patterns have nicknames. The pattern for Forest Green is 8.6.8.5.D of “Common Meter Double,” which means twice through 8.6.8.6. Sorry…you didn’t know this was going to be a class did you.
Anyway, this metrical organization of tunes permits singers to sing any set of words of a specific metrical pattern to be sung to any tune of the same pattern. For instance, Forest Green, in the New Century Hymnal, is used with two different sets of words: #434 (All Beautiful the March of Days) and also #110 (Now Bless the God of Israel). As you sing along, the words for #434 (my own favorite words for this tune) may be found at https://hymnary.org/text/all_beautiful_the_march_of_days and the words for #110 at https://hymnary.org/text/now_bless_the_god_of_israel. Some hymnals even use it for “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” which may have been (I don’t know for sure) the text associated with Forest Green when Ralph Vaughan Williams made his famous 4-part harmonization that I used here.
OK…class dismissed. Have fun!
Just a reminder that the complete collection of these hymn recordings is available for free listening (streaming) at https://soundcloud.com/hilton-kean-jones/sets/hymns-at-lakewood. When each new recording is posted on the church website, it is also added to this album.
It’s finally operational! The electrical vehicle charging station at the church, that is!
The church has been working with Duke Energy for several months on the installation of the EV charging station. Duke paid for the charging station and the church was responsible for the lighting and the curbs. Two vehicles at a time can be charged.
The station appears on an app that shows drivers where they can charge their cars.
Many thanks to Claire Stiles, Earl Waters, Bert Lee, and Jeff Wells for all of their help with this project!
