This week I’ve spent a lot of time in church listening to sacred music. I won’t lie and say that it’s been consistently great, the auditions for a new church organist never are. I understand that because St Paul’s pays its organist the post holds an attraction to people who are outside of the church community but if you are also outside of the music community and are in fact a tone deaf nitwit playing the spoons and bellowing Shine, Jesus Shine to the tune of the Go Compare! ad then perhaps you could’ve refrained from wasting my time.
Of course the post of church organist at St Paul’s will always be tainted by the memory of Augustus de Havillland who before he was caught, sentenced and hanged managed to clock up what in today’s money would be almost three hundred thousand pounds in fees for playing at funerals before anyone worked out why there were suddenly so many funerals taking place. Rest assured that could never happen today. Your team at St Paul’s are much more on the ball. Even Andy our curate usually knows what day it is if you manage to catch him before he’s gone to The Squirrel Licker’s. 🙂
The appointment of a new organist offers us a good chance to turn over a new leaf and work together to combat the single biggest threat to church music in living memory: Simon Cowell. Thanks him a lot of you seem to have been brainwashed into thinking that the correct way to sing is to howl your way up and down the octaves like a hysterical wolf. He has convinced people that cut-price Mariah Carey warbling is the highest form of vocal excellence and I don’t think I take it much longer. Try to remember that you are in church to sing praise to God; not to impress a panel of judges.
So while I go in search of an organist perhaps you could all do your vicar a favour and go in search of a tune.
God Bless,
Tansy
P.S The answer to last week’s catchphrase puzzle is of course ‘slack dragon’. Clearly it was beyond the reach of most of you. 🙂
