Song has been a vehicle for connection with Spirit since the dawn of human life. Song reaches deep within our hearts in a way that words alone cannot. It has been used as a form of worship or for spiritual deepening since the dawn of humanity. When people sing together it also draws them into close fellowship with each other.
Historical of Singing & Music among Friends
Although many Friends assume that Friends never sang until fairly recently, Kenneth Carroll’s carefully-researched article on Singing in the Spirit in Early Quakerism makes clear that spontaneous Spirit-guided singing was definitely approved of and practiced in the first generation of Friends. (Jim Fussell has summarized Carroll’s findings in his short article on Singing in the Spirit.)
It seems clear, however, that fairly early on instrumental and choral music became associated by early Friends with distractions from the life of the spirit and became strongly disapproved of. Even spontaneous singing seems to have disappeared from meetings for worship by the 1670s.
It became a practice among many recorded ministers in Wilburite and Conservative Friends to deliver messages during waiting worship in a kind of plainsong-like chant or “sing-song”. Peter Lasersohn describes this practice (which disappeared in the early 20th century) in his article on The Sing-Song.
Guerneyite Friends in the U.S. began incorporating choral hymn-singing in their worship in the mid-19th century. Choral singing is now a regular part of programmed meetings for worship in Friends United Meeting and Evangelical yearly meetings today around the world. Friends from Kenya and elsewhere often bring songs into waiting worship when they attend these during Friends World Committee gatherings or hybrid gatherings such as Quaker Spring.
Semi-programmed meetings have a period of choral singing, a message (usually prepared in advance), and perhaps reading of bible passages followed by a significant periof of open waiting worship.
Hicksite or Friends General Conference Friends began singing hymns in the 20th century but not, in most cases, during waiting worship. Peter Blood-Patterson’s article on Singing among FGC Friends explores the growing use of group singing outside of worship.
In the U.K. a vital group of musicians, composers, and performance artists formed The Leaveners in 1978. This began as street theater with youth and grrew into a vitally active Quaker organization founded as a Quaker Community Arts Charity. For 39 years it supported a wide range arts with a main emphasis on performance arts which include youth theater which performed street theater on important issues of the day and also performances of major musical choral works at Britain Yearly Meeting gatherings and at public performance space such as the Royal Albert Hall.
Quaker Music Network is a newer group that hopes to carry on some of the performance functions of The Leaveners.
Coram Leap Confronting Conflict began life a LEAP (Leaveners’ Experiments in Arts for Peace) and was founded by Alec Davison of the Leaveners in 1987.
In recent years more Friends also sing during waiting worship as a form of Spirit-led vocal ministry. Jim Fussell’s article on Singing in the Spirit raises provocative and helpful questions about the use of song in waiting worship and includes helpful queries for Friends about these issues.
Three Rivers Friends Meeting has a weekly vespers every Sunday evening where you can listen with other Friends to moving songs that speak deeply to the heart of our journey as Friends. (You can find at the above link access to a playlist on Spotify of nearly a thousand songs from previous vespers.)
Songs by Friends
Paulette Meier
Paulette has taken the writings of many early Friends and put them to music in a way that is reminiscent of the Gregorian chants used in worship by monks and nuns since the Middle Ages. These Quaker chants or “plainsong” both help modern minds to hear the spiritual power within some of these early Quaker writings—and also have the power to be deep meditative tools. She is a member of Cincinnati Community Meeting in Ohio Valley YM.
She has released two recordings with these chants: Timeless Wisdom in Quaker Plainsong and Wellsprings of Life: Quaker Wisdom in Chant.
Each album includes extensive inserts with the words and background of each chant.
Seeds of War is a setting of words of John Woolman.
Give Over Thine Own Willing is her setting of a 1661 quote by Isaac Penington.
Our Life Is Love is Paulette’s setting to words taken from Penington’s 1667 Letter to Friends at Amersham.
Tony Biggin & Alec Davison
Tony and Alec are English Friends that have collaborated in creating several powerful oratorios based on their faith as Friends.
One of these, The Fire & the Hammer, about the life of George Fox, was performed by a special chorus under the direction of John Sheldon at the annual sessions of New England Yearly Meeting and the following summer at FGC summer gathering in Rhode Island.
Wait in the Light (also known as “Wait in the Stillness”) is a song from the Fire & the Hammer about the transformative power of expectant waiting worship as practiced by Friends.
Tony and Alec created an earlier oratorio called The Gates of Greenham on the women’s peace encampment at Greenham Common in opposition to a cruise missile base in England in 1981.
Tony has also created a 60 minute oratorio called Cry of the Earth on the climate and environmental crisis.
Susan Stark
Bev Shepard
Kenneth Boulding
Christ, Thou Word of God Once Spoken
Other songs
Shaker songs
Bob Franke
Bob Franke is a singer songwriter based in Boston. He was originally training to become an Episcopal priest but ended up turning to a musical vocation. Many of his songs contain deep spiritual messages often with extraordinary reinterpretations of biblical themes.
Still Small Voice draws on the line from the Prophet Elijah in 1 Kings 19:11-12.
Beggars to God takes the gospel parable of the wise & foolish virgins (Matt. 25:1-13) and turns it on its head—suggesting that faith in God may lead us to a passion that breaks through usual boundaries and rules.
Songs of accompaniment
Sanctuary by Eliza Gilkyson
Songs on healing and letting go
These are songs that can be sung at a meeting for healing — or with a Friend who is passing on from this life, or friends and families of those at this stage of life.
Love Call Me Home by Peggy Seeger
Songbooks
Worship in Song: A Friends Hymnal was developed by a large team of Friends that met over several years to discern the best songs to include and published by Friends General Conference in 1996. It includes many folk songs and new folk hymns as well as more traditional hymns. It is used by some FUM as well as many FGC meetings. It is also available in a large print spiral bound edition which is especially helpful for musical accompaniment. You can find a list of the 335 songs and other resources about the hymanl at hymnary.org.
Many Friends meetings also use Rise Up Singing: The Group Singing Songbook, which was created by Friends Anne Patterson & Peter Blood-Patterson in 1988 and still in print. It is available the above link and is much much more affordably if ordered by the carton. (Friends in New Zealand consider Rise Up Singing “the Quaker hymnal”!) Annie & Peter created a sequel called Rise Again in 2015. It contains 1200 different songs from Rise Up Singing and many more song genres in depth than the original collection (which is heavily weighted towards folk songs).
Many meetings, churches, and other community locations like libraries hold monthly singalongs using Rise Up Singing and/or Rise Again as a way of building community, raising hope, and spreading the values Friends hold dear like peace, racial justice, and healing.
Sing in the Spirit: A Book of Quaker Songs was published by The Leaveners in 2005. It is sadly out of print.