Since we briefly touched on this in another post, I am beginning a post on it, not knowing whether or not anyone else is interested.

I use some Anglican chant in the Roman Rite masses for which I play and conduct. Last Good Friday, in particular, I used Anglican rather than Gregorian chants. They were a bit easier for my choir to handle. I have attached a basic set of instructions for Anglican chant, keeping in mind the key principle that "Good chanting is just good intelligent reading in musical tones." Often, the unaccompanied chants are written in neumes on a 4-line staff just like Gregorian. chant instructions

I have some friends who are active in the Anglo-Catholic community and sing in their church choir. I will ask them for links to Anglican chant resources.

My friends are responding nicely. Here is a link to a site called Christian Classics--Ethereal Hymnody that includes subsidiary links to the Psalter and hymn books, as well as instructions for singing Anglican chant.

In addition, I have received links to several You Tube videos of Anglican Chant, including Attwood's setting of Psalm 50 ; Psalms from Westminster Cathedral ; and the Great Litany .

I see the Ethereal Harmonies instructions sent by my Anglican friend is the same as those provided by ByzanTN. This appears to be the "go-to" site for such things.

Those instructions came from "The Hymnal, 1940." It may very well be one of the best hymnals of all time.

One thing that struck me about the Anglican chant is how easy it is to pick up, and how well it adapts itself to simple harmonization, both of which make it excellent for congregational use,

Very true. I find it easy to learn and congregations to sing. The Anglicans mastered chant in English long ago. Being out of touch with Rome, they still have all the hundreds of sequences suppressed by Trent.

Certainly as a 12 year old singing in the choir in a Village Church I found it very easy to pick up the Anglican Chant .

Some 6 years later I found myself again in the Choir of an English [ Anglican ] Church and the ability to Chant came back almost instantly . There seems to be a sort of logical pattern to it.

Anglican chant is beautiful. I show examples of it to those who tell me chants don't fit English.

The You Tube links I posted are just a handful of the examples out there for those who want to hear for themselves.

That setting to Psalm 50 is interestingly similar in sound to many songs we sang in my Methodist church. I would imagine that Charles Wesley, being an Anglican (and a Methodist at the same time), when composing his hymnody drew often from the musical heritage of the Anglican tradition, which would explain the resemblance I noted above.

Alexis

One of the Irish Presbyterian groups has a well-earned reputation for excellent Psalm-chanting. One might investigate this form of chant.

Fr. Serge

There are some sound files floating around of a weather report and a traffic code sung in Anglican Chant. They're worth a Google.

Dave

One should also look at Early American psalmody, which has much in common (believe it or not) with Orthodox psalmody. Listen to some of William Billings' settings, sung a capella, for instance.

Ah yes - the King Singers

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4z2jwDcb9wI

[ hope that works ]