Letter: Vocal disagreement

Sir: Dorothy Hampson bewails the reluctance of youngsters to join in the hymns at a funeral service and blames it on the lack of singing in schools. Not so.

The fault lies in the high pitch of many traditional hymn tunes. They were originally designed for places of worship possessing a trained four-part choir whose bass and alto lines needed to lie in vocal range and whose trebles could reach top Es and Fs with ease. I suggest that on emotionally charged family occasions, or indeed at any time when comfortable, unison singing is required, she should transpose the hymns down at least a tone. Both young and old will be mightily relieved. I suspect the regular Sunday congregation would be grateful, too.

Yours sincerely,

BARBARA POINTON

Royston, Hertfordshire