Dear Leonardo & List,

Data from at least five years of church bulletins are far more valuable 
in determining a congregation's repertoire.  In churches that don't list 
hymns, then music lists from musicians and clergy are next best. After 
that, a congregational survey may be useful to determine current 
favorites. Beware you may not like the results.

Taken together, these can form a teaching plan for new music on the 
basis of what folks actually know. When I worked as a church musician, 
this was the basis for planning the 10-12 new items to be learned over 
the course of a given year.  When a new hymn or liturgical piece was 
being learned _everything else_ was absolutely familiar.  New stuff 
wasn't used for opening or closing hymns until it was thoroughly learned.

It is essential that you really know what the people know.

Ben Baldus
Lutherpalian

On 7/26/2011 7:38 PM, Leonardo Ciampa wrote:
> Friends, Have any of you had a positive, or negative, experience with 
> hymn surveys in your church? How was the data collected? Once 
> collected, how was it used? Did any good, or bad, come of it? Best, LC 
> Sent on the Sprint® Now Network from my BlackBerry® 
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Note:  opinions  expressed on PIPORG-L are those of the  individual con-
tributors and not necessarily  those of the list owners  nor of the Uni-
versity of Iowa.  For a brief  summary of list  commands, send mail to
[log in to unmask]  saying  HELP .
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