Wot? No music? Lifting up the voice where just two or three are gathered…

Lift up your voice course, in which Rosemary explains her thinking; this may be seen on the RSCM Centre’s channel on YouTube.

In a former existence, Rosemary was Music Development Officer in Lincoln Diocese. It was during that appointment that she identified a need to give small congregations something simple to sing during services. This new course Lift up your voice being offered by the RSCM includes elements that were tried and tested during Rosemary’s previous appointment. “I know that it has worked,” she said. “For at least half of our Christian history we have sung unaccompanied (and in any old key that we fancy) things that were known to illiterate congregations, learnt by ear.”

The first RSCM courses are being run now; one has just been held in Devon, and bookings are being taken for the next session in Bury St Edmunds on Saturday 5 April. Aimed at both lay and ordained leaders, this day-long course offers simple, achievable music for use in churches where there is no trained musical leadership. Participants will be shown how to lead singing effectively, and will be provided with music and recordings to take away for intro- duction into their own worship. Some ready-made service outlines will also be offered, especially suitable for churches where a priest isn’t always available.

Rosemary accepts the point that churches do need someone to take the musical initiative. “You do need someone who doesn’t care if they don’t sound brilliant. What we need to do is to give people the chance to unite mind, heart, voice and soul in a way that really only music can,” she said. “I’d love to be able to walk into a small church on a Sunday morning and find that there were six people singing [unaccompanied], and I wouldn’t care whether it’s beautifully in tune: the point is they would be making music in worship.”

Bookings are now being taken for the Lift up your voice course in Bury St Edmunds on 5 April between 10am and 4pm. For more information on this and other RSCM courses, go to www.rscm.com/courses. A fuller version of the interview given by Rosemary Field may be viewed on the RSCM Centre’s YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=reReTScTeoc Stuart Robinson is Media Relations Organiser and Wales Coordinator,

Royal School of Church Music.