Rhythm and Voice

Larry Peters at Pastoral Meanderings has a short piece on the elements of rhythm and voice in the context of sacred music.  Two comments stand out:

The successful hymn is one in which the text and tune work together in a seamless pattern—both, as it were, speaking the same language and message.  The least successful hymns are those which require a choice—text or tune—because they do not go together.  One of the problems in hymn-writing (both lyrics and music) is the difficulty in keeping the text and tune married, stanza upon stanza.

When the music makes it seem like the voice is secondary or peripheral to the song, we have problems with this music in service to the liturgy.

We don't use a formal liturgy at our assembly, but you get the idea.  I recommend reading the whole post.