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.

Monday, May 28, 2007

HYMN DESCANTS - Lulu.com

HYMN DESCANT'S STORE at Lulu.com
Added a music note book to the Hymn Descants Store. It allows you to jot down your creative ideas, plans and to-dos before they vanish from your mind. List hymn tunes to find; descants to find, write or modify. Contains music staffs for quick manual music entry for later entering into your music notation program. Keep this note book handy in your music bag.
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Monday, May 21, 2007

Why Hymn Descants?

See middle paragraph of my updated welcome message on the first page of this blog.
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Saturday, May 19, 2007

Hymn Arrangements and Descants

Hymn Arrangements and Descants by Diane Tuiofu Excellent page, full of music to print(PDFs) and listen to (MP3s). I am adding this to my main page HYMN DESCANTS now.
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Wednesday, May 9, 2007

Jibstay: In Need of a Descant

Jibstay: In Need of a Descant
I just loved this posting, such a great description of a descant!
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Tuesday, May 8, 2007

Handbook for Creative Church Musicians

A highly recommended book. It is a practical guide to composition and arranging by Harold Owen. The very first chapter covers descants - lots of examples for both instrumental and choral descants, including a section on problems and solutions. Available at SheetMusicPlus.
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Rejoice Music - Descants!

Descants at Rejoice Music A good selection of lightly used church choir music from this eBay store.
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