A sian Church Music

Abstract

Abstract Asian church music as an indigenous congregational expression in Christian worship was first documented in the pioneering work of two individuals, Daniel T. Niles and I‐To Loh, through their editorial endeavors in two groundbreaking hymnals, the East Asian Christian Conference Hymnal (Tokyo, 1963) and Sound the Bamboo Hymnal (Hong Kong, 1990, 2000) respectively. It is through Niles' contribution that the world church caught the first glimpse of a distinct repertoire of musical resources. Quite unlike traditional western hymnody, Asian melodies were juxtaposed with a western harmonic treatment. Through this approach, his effort served to present an accessible, unified, and homogenous Asian hymnody. Indeed, this work was well received and led to several reprints until the early 1970s. However, as Asian churches became more receptive to local influences, Loh became the champion for a different approach in Asian hymnody. As a result, the Sound the Bamboo Hymnal contained a wide variety of musical styles within a single hymnal. This time round, Asian church music exhibited a greater sense of diversity unlike the earlier more homogeneous style of East Asian Christian Conference Hymnal .