Lining out

History#

Lining out first appears in 17th-century Britain when literacy rates were low and books were expensive. Precenting the line was characterised by a slow, drawn-out heterophonic and often profusely ornamented melody, while a clerk or precentor (song leader) chanted the text line by line before it was sung by the congregation. It was outlined for use by the Westminster Assembly for English churches in 1644, and it has persisted longest in Britain in the Scottish Hebrides. The tide turned against lining out in England and New England in the first quarter of the 18th century, with greater literacy, improved availability of texts such as New Version of the Psalms of David (1696) by Nahum Tate and Nicholas Brady, and more widely available and better-printed tune collections. Influential clerics in England and America disliked the ragged nature of the singing that resulted as the congregation struggled to remember both the tune and the words from the lining out, but it continued to be practiced in most rural churches and still survives today in a form that likely would have been familiar to the original English and Ulster-Scots colonists in isolated communities in the Appalachian Mountains. Lining out was in most places replaced by “regular singing”, in which either the congregation knew a small number of tunes like Old 100th that could be fitted to many different texts in standard meters such as long meter, or a tunebook was used along with a word book. There began to be “singing societies” of young men who met one evening a week to rehearse. As time went on, a section of the church was allocated for these trained voices to sit together as a choir, and churches voted to end the lining out system (although there was often a transitional phase that had the entire congregation singing from tunebooks like the still-popular The Sacred Harp and others, before this was taken over by using trained choirs; this gave birth to the still vibrant tradition of “Sacred harp singing” ). A vivid picture of the transition comes from Worcester, Massachusetts:

Current usage#

Some Christian churches in the U.S. still practice lining out. While some churches calling themselves Primitive Baptist or Regular Baptist use it, this form of singing predominates among the Old Regular Baptist churches. The practice is becoming attenuated in some of them—the leader will begin lining out, but after the first verse or two will say “Sing on!”, or a part of the service is lined out, but other parts are not, so how long it will survive is unclear. Some Presbyterian churches in Scotland also still do lining out, though often now in a restricted context, with other hymns being accompanied and not lined out. The practice is now more common in Gaelic psalm singing than in English, and indeed is often considered a characteristic of Gaelic culture, especially on the Isle of Lewis. Unlike other denominations that carry on the tradition of lining out, Gaelic churches practice Exclusive Psalmody. It is suggested that the last English-speaking congregation in the south of Scotland to give up weekly use of “reading the line” was the South Clerk Street branch of the Original Secession Church in Edinburgh, who only discontinued the tradition in 1912. Thus, they may have been the last indigenous Lowland congregation to give out the line in public worship. On the Isle of Skye, the use of the “line” in English at funerals in the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland possibly lasted until the 1960s. And, sporadic instances elsewhere in the years since across the Highlands. This includes Flashadder and Staffin Free Presbyterian Churches, and Strathay APC. Lining of hymns is still widely practiced by the three traditional branches of the Hutterites (Lehrerleut, Dariusleut, Schmiedeleut II). It may also be heard among some conservative Anabaptist churches, such as German Baptist Brethren, Old Order Mennonites, and the Old Order River Brethren.

In popular culture#

In the film Coal Miner’s Daughter, lining out is depicted at the funeral of Loretta Lynn’s father, Ted Webb.

Further reading#

• Dargan, William T. (2006). Lining Out the Word: Dr. Watts Hymn Singing in the Music of Black Americans, University of California Press.
• Smythe Babcock Mathews, William. (2010). A Hundred Years of Music in America: An Account of Musical Effort in America, Nabu Press.

External links#

• African American hymn choirs and prayer bands from North Carolina, South Carolina, the District of Columbia and Maryland who sing traditional lined out hymns
• Hope Old Regular Baptist Services with audio files of preaching and singing
• Several linked references to the historical evolution of lining out
• Playable examples of lined-out hymns recorded in the 1990s by Old Regular Baptists in Kentucky
• Lined-Out Hymnody
• Lining out in a Mississippi congregation, with a playable example
• Review comparing shape note or Sacred Harp hymnody with lining out