Psalms Execution

Music Composed by Kingdom Ministry to the exact verses in the Official Catholic Bible Note : The Psalm MP3 recordings along with this are music composition tracks — done for tune composition purpose only. A professional recording of these is yet to be made. The recording quality of the present tracks is such it should be played only with the EQ settings preset on the player, and listened on headsets/ earphones to which the EQ is matched. These tracks should not be played on open speakers — for, the reproduction quality would be very poor. These Psalms are composed without any textual changes from the original Word Of God. Hence, instead of ‘listening’ to them as we do with songs in general, these Psalms should be ‘read’ as text while we hear them on the headset. Towards this, a Malayalam Psalm print as booklet is given along with this. !2 Dear Manoj and friends at the JesusYouth, This is on the subject of Malayalam language Psalms Music Composing Project which during the years 1999 to 2008 I had completed for The Kingdom Ministry. Your JesusYouth members had also contributed in this. How it happened. In the summer of 1999 my Pappa - Navodaya Appachan, sponsored for Brother Thomas Paul a spiritual music cassette “SANGEERTHANANGAL” — eight Malayalam psalms selected from the KCBC Bible. The tunes were composed by the Kingdom Ministry members after Thomas Paul for these eight Psalms did some ‘inspired editing and rephrasing’ of the text in the KCBC Malayalam Bible. I brought in our Music Director Sharreth who along with his wife attended a few of Thomas Paul’s retreat sessions at Chittoor, before sequencing the tracks and music interludes for the said album. It was Sharreth, Sreenivasan (playback singer) and Kingdom Ministry’s own keyboardist Babu who sang the songs. Voice recordings were done at Kochi Dioscecse’s Santa Cicilia Studio at Palluruthy; Live Instruments overdubs and final mix at Chennai. At the Kingdom Ministry, Palarivattom (opposite to POC) oneway we were listening to the ‘first release album’. We, meaning members of their Ministry — Shaji (son of Mr. P. P. George, Kombara), Sister Maria Kannampuzha, singers Jessy & Jain, Thomas Paul — and myself. Then, Thomas Paul made an announcement that he has received a new ‘message’ to compose and record all of the 150 Psalms (Malayalam)! Yet, without even changing one single word, comma or fullstop. - Exactly as The Word Of God is printed in the Official Catholic Bible! I laughed. Why did I laugh? Just take a look at the Psalm passages printed in Malayalam Bible. At a first glance itself, most of them lack poetic structure — metre, rhyme … even phrasing by word-lengths, from one line to the next. !3 There is no symmetry or alignment in the Malayalam text printed in the Bible itself. Biblical Psalms have originally been written (actually, as per Jewish tradition, orally rendered — since Hebrew text came into existence only a few centuries before Jesus’ time) by King David, Koreh sons, …… etc., on some sort of archaic musical metres of those time — metres specific to ancient Hebrew phonetics. But what would have been written to a metre would have been completely lost in translations once the Bible came to us through Greek manuscripts, their English versions … and finally, direct translations to Malayalam from original parchments of Nag Hammadi and Qumran Cave Scrolls. We can surely surmise that the translators, how much ever gifted they were in the vernacular language — (in this case, Malayalam), would have had their priorities set in capturing the original meaning of the words and phrases. Not the poetry. No wonder the lines look asymmetric and asynchronous in many of the Malayalam Psalms. Yet, I should admit that the meaning has been captured with absolute passion by those experts who did the Malayalam. This is in comparison with the corresponding English lines in the NAB. (But there are also lines that are deficient. For example, Psalm 110 - a most important Messianic Psalm. Psalm 87 in Malayalam doesn’t measure up with the NAB. Psalm 45’s ‘skilful scribe’ has been translated into Malayalam un- poetically as X¿mdmbncn¡p¶ Fgp¯pImc³). I said to Brother Thomas Paul “Look Brother, in the Sangeerthanam 90 which you did just now, you had to change the first line IÀ¯mth, A§p Xeapd Xeapdbmbn R§fpsS B{ibambncp¶p. into Xeapd Xeapdbmbn, (2 bars) IÀ¯mth, (2 bars) A§p B{ibambncp¶p. (2 bars) This you had done to conform the line to a metre (4/4) uniform for the entire song”. “Poetic rendition of the lyrics apart …” I continued to Thomas Paul “As you know Brother, today the trend is to put words into precomposed music … even for spiritual songs. Rhythm is given prominence over melody and poetry. No wonder, the language sounds mutilated. But today’s public like it. They say it sounds ‘young’. So why take a torturous path back to the days when music was scored over pre-written lyrics? !4 Even in those days when music was composed for the poetic lyric, they made sure the lyric was first written to a metre — like … say, Aadi Thaalam, Thrupata, 7/8, Kaakali Vrutham …. etc., which comes with beat/ syncopation along with the written words themselves. ….. Your logic, frankly I don’t understand.” Instead of answering my points, I heard him say something else. “Jijo, Psalms are very important because many lines are about Jesus … written on Jesus … centuries before He was born. Why, Jesus himself cites this specifically. Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms. Luke 24: 44 So, if we can convey the Word Of God … as it is written, as it was intended by The Holy Spirit, without altering the text for the sake of musical propriety, you know what the power of that would be on human hearts! Our creative efforts should be submissive to what is written. We should bend the music norms so that The Word remains unaltered.” Said Thomas Paul in conviction. I was about to say “Maybe, … but then, would that sound like a good song to ordinary beholders? … leave alone trained musicians!” I didn’t say that. Because I was all along being aware that Jessy & Jain — the 16/18 year old sisters from Idukki who gave singing support for Kingdom Ministry programs, had besides us started composing and singing Psalm #2 IÀ¯mhns³d A`njnIvX³ (a Messianic Psalm) and Psalm #4 ssZh¯nÂ B\\vZhpw kpcIvjnXXzhpw. The music was traditional. But it was also melodious and original. I was surprised the way Jessy was able to ‘fit’ words of Psalm #2 in a 4/4 metre. And then in Psalm #4, she — while holding tempo, effortlessly moved between beat 3/4 for the pallavi to beat 4/4 for the charanam — without even realising that there was a musical acrobatics that was happening! I have seen only trained musicians like Sharret do that. These two sisters here were unschooled in music. ******* !5 Back at my room in Navodaya, sitting at my table I was thinking about the conversation at Kingdom Ministry when suddenly I found ‘The One who listens to all conversations and follows every thought’ standing across my table. “What do you make of this” HE asked. “Quite remarkable!” I answered “Obviously, …YOU have a musical metre incorporated in those lines … kept hidden from the wise and the learned, it is revealed to children” “Would you like to try the same?” HE asked. “Oh, that would be interesting … would YOU give me the metre?” “O.K. … Look down” HE said. I looked down and saw the Bible kept open in front of me (The Malayalam, besides the NAB) and saw the opening lines of Psalm 39 a\pjy³ \ngÂam{Xw 1 Rm³ ]dªp: \mhpsImW vSp ]m]w sN¿mXncn¡m³ Rm³ Fs³d hgnIÄ {iZv[n¡pw; Fs³d ap³]nÂ ZpjvSÀ DÅnSt¯mfw Imew \mhn\p Rm³ ISnªmWnSpw. As I followed the words, I could find it was falling into rhythm 6/8. I caught a melody in hindustani raaga Brindavani Saaranga coming to my mind (actually, the raaga itself, I had no understanding …. only the knowledge that the famous tune Kajra Mohabbat Wala is composed in the said raaga). I started singing … and it worked! I completed the first 4 verses there itself. Not just that. As the first stanza (4 lines) sank in, I could fully understand the meaning behind the Word Of God. It was about the control of one’s feelings … if feelings gets processed as thoughts within one’s mind, these thoughts eventually would emerge as words on one’s tongue. 1 to 4 lines of Psalm 39 is the foundation of the famous statement series Watch your feelings, for they become thoughts. Watch your thoughts, for they become words. Watch your words, for words denote attitude. Watch your attitude, for it dictates your behaviour. Watch your behaviour, for behaviour defines character. Watch your character, for thats your destiny. ******* Next morning at Kingdom Palarivattom I was entering wondering what my role in this would constitute to … when I found Rex Band musician Alphonse there. He was brought by Shaji as per Thomas Paul’s request … and had !6 already started notating music score and arranging piano chords for Psalm #9 aÀZnXs³d {]Xymi ------ — which Jessy and Jane had just composed that morning. Confusion reigned. Alphonse was at loss because Jessy hadn’t phrased the words properly into the 4/4 metre in which she had composed the song. Words were getting spilled over from 4 bars to 4 1/2 bars … 5 and even 6 bars at random! Shaji and myself looked at each other … understanding the problem well.

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