Choosing hymns for a funeral can be quite tricky if you don't attend church regularly, and according to statistics from the Church of England, that includes most of us these days. Only 1.1 million people in the UK attend a CofE church each week, while 69% of the UK population would say that they are Christians. So it comes as no surprise that many people organising funerals don't have experience of singing hymns apart from the odd wedding or school concert. |
Funeral hymns really do sound best played on a real organ - but what if the church or crematorium doesn't have an organ, or indeed an organist? Singers for Funerals have an extensive library of recorded hymns accompaniments for funerals for just such a situation, thanks to the excellent recordings by John Keys available from the Hymns CDs website.
We invested in the full set of accompaniments - over 1000 in all - and they have been invaluable for our soloists so far, as we can quickly learn new hymns tunes and accompaniments. So far we have been very lucky in that every funeral we have performed at has booked an organist, and to be honest, we'd always rather sing with a real live organist than recordings, given the choice. However, our funeral hymns backing tracks, for lack of a better phrase, will soon come into their own when we will be singing at a funeral in a tiny country church where there is no organ at all. Our library also includes our own recordings of songs and opera arias, so whatever the family chose from their funeral service music, we should be covered!
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