Reconnecting To Our Lutheran Musical Heritage - Page 2
© James Gerhardt Sucha
In 1994, I was temporarily disabled for a year and spiritually challenged when my health went bad from damaged muscles. I was injured two years previous driving a city bus on the job, and now the muscles were damaged and not functioning properly. After being diagnosed with fibromyalgia, I began to have depression and started to lose my confidence in abilities and myself. My college degree was getting me nowhere, and I was faced with a major obstacle in my life.
I returned to the ELCA in 1995 after being encouraged to learn to play the pipe organ by good friend who was an ELCA pastor. He felt that the intricate movements to play an organ would help my muscles regain control and stamina. While learning how to play, I found a copy of the old SBH, and started to learn the hymns and liturgy out of it. I rediscovered the liturgy I loved as a kid from SBH. It was Regina Fryxell's SBH Second Setting that helped me hang in there during the darkest time during the rehab of my muscles. I found God in her melodies and those wonderful old texts telling me that I would be okay, and to not give up. Her inspiring music and story was my therapy, and is what held me together during those physically painful months. Forgotten hymns from the SBH helped me as well. When I played the liturgy and hymns from SBH to the congregation, they reacted very warmly. Some people were moved to tears when they sang music from the Lutheran past that had been excluded from LBW. I later moved to Denver after I recovered, found work full time again, and started a mission to create a supplement that fills in the gaps where LBW misses.
I started a note-by-note analysis of the LBW hymns, and soon found that much of our past was severed. The singable hymns in LBW in regards to the classic hymns were limited. There were some though that did escape the hymn doctors, while many were tampered with or updated with new harmonies or divorced from familiar tunes. Texts of hymns were also altered, and in some cases, the poetic lyrics altered to the point of the unrecognizable from the original composer or hymnist. Many hymns that were modernized in LBW contain clashing notes and strange harmonies. However the hymn layout and page setup of LBW is the best feature verses SBH.
