Hymn Origins

Came across this discussion on one of my mailing lists, I thought I'd post it since it kind of ties in with something I will be posting later.(hopefully)

I would like to know about the origins or our Lutheran Hymns. What I would
really like to know is whether or not they were derived from music that
would have been classified as german beer drinking melodies?? I had a
discussion with another lutheran that goes to one of the large liberal
LCMS congregations here in the KC area and his argument to me was that
Luther would be turning over in his grave if he knew what we
(Confessionals) were doing in trying to preserve the traditional lutheran
worship. He basically compared my thinking to that of the Pharisees. He
said that the hymns in Luthers time were all beer drinking melodies and that
the reason for that was to bring it to the people in a language that they
would understand and that we should change with times so that we can
continue to bring it to the people in a language that they can
understand today.

Reply:
If you google "Martin Luther" and "bar tunes", you 'll find out the
scoop on this old rumor that Luther took beer drinking songs and made
them into hymns. What he did was write music with lines between the
measures and those lines are called "bars". Here's an example of an
article written by Gene Veith about that subject. There were several
when I did the search.

http://www.worldmag.com/articles/9831

The Confessions say that we retain the Mass -- Luther was not interested
in trashing the tradition (like liberals today). He was interested in
correcting the abuses which had come into being over the years (sale of
indulgences, masses for the dead etc.)



Christ Centered, Cross Focused