The Meter numbers in church songs?

July 10, 2006 7:34 PM

In church Hymnals what do the numbers below the title mean?

They are usually written like 11 11 14 or 87 88 87. The best I've been able to figure out is that it has something to do with the meter, but I'm not sure what.

posted by drezdn to media & arts (8 comments total)

What Is Meter?
posted by Opposite George at 7:41 PM on July 10, 2006

Thanks Opposite George, I thought it had something to do with the music rather than the words.
posted by drezdn at 7:47 PM on July 10, 2006

Opposite George has it. The numbers refer to the number of syllables in each line. I always assumed that the reason the meter was included is to make it easier to find alternate tunes for a given text... for instance, "Go Tell It On The Mountain" and "O Sacred Head Now Wounded" both have a meter of 76. 76, which means that theoretically one could sing the somber text of "O Sacred Head" to the peppy tune of "Go Tell It On The Mountain" which would be awesome.
posted by the_bone at 7:54 PM on July 10, 2006

Ha! I always wanted to know that! Good question drezdn!

My daughter just said it was tempo, or just what George said.
posted by rinkjustice at 7:58 PM on July 10, 2006

I always assumed that the reason the meter was included is to make it easier to find alternate tunes for a given text

Yes, it is. In the full music edition of hymn books, you will often find a 'Metrical Index' of tunes at the back, so you can see all of the tunes with the same meter listed together. Even then, it's not guaranteed that you can simply drop one tune in in place of another, since the meter tells you nothing about where the stresses are, but it at least narrows down the field.
posted by chrismear at 10:14 PM on July 10, 2006

My daughter just said it was tempo

Not strictly correct: the tempo of a tune is whether it's fast or slow, while the meter only tells you about the layout of the tune, and doesn't tell you anything about how fast it's supposed to go.
posted by chrismear at 10:20 PM on July 10, 2006

one could sing the somber text of "O Sacred Head" to the peppy tune of "Go Tell It On The Mountain" which would be awesome.

That just begs to be HiFi.
posted by dw at 12:22 AM on July 11, 2006

chrismear: thank you for the clarification.
posted by rinkjustice at 8:04 AM on July 11, 2006