Welcome to the Hymn Descants Blog

A descant is a counter melody written above the original melody. Its main purpose is to enhance the original melody without overpowering it. It heightens the effectiveness of the worship experience by adding a sense of climax and joy to a hymn.

Why hymn descants? I felt a need to expand my flute playing in church to more that just playing the various lines in the hymnal. Descants allow me to do this and bring more glory to God through my music. I found a few descant resources scattered here and there about the internet, but no one comprehensive site, so www.hymndescants.com was born.

This blog provides a forum for all to discuss descants as used in hymns. Posts can cover finding descants, writing, playing and/or singing descants.

Friday, March 30, 2007

Webpage

The web page www.hymndescants.com is still a work in progress. If you have any suggestions or interesting links I can add please let me know, thanks.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Interesting site. I would take a slight exception to your statement, "[A descant] is most effective when used with the last stanza where it provides a suitable climax; never use it on the first stanza." I know a number of texts where I find the most desirable stanza for a descant is not the last one. One example is "Let all mortal flesh keep silence", where my personal preference is for the last stanza to have a somewhat restrained affect, and where I prefer an exuberant descant on the next to lat stanza. And in my view, some of the Easter texts really cry for a descant on the first stanza, which in a few cases is more exuberant than any of the others.

D Schram said...

Interesting comment. I have not seen an example of which you speak. Sounds intriguing. The one thing I have found in music is that it is possible to bend "the rules" and it still turns out right. With descants alot does depend on the words of the hymn as to how the enhancement occurs. Maybe the statement should be changed to "typically" on the last stanza as opposed to "never".