{"id":289,"date":"2006-05-02T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2006-05-02T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/2006\/05\/play-rock-of-ages-hal.html"},"modified":"2006-05-02T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2006-05-02T12:00:00","slug":"play-rock-of-ages-hal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2006\/05\/play-rock-of-ages-hal.html","title":{"rendered":"Play “Rock of Ages,” Hal"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Church of England has a surfeit of organs, but the ranks of organists to play them on Sunday morning is thinning. The dilemma has led to the runaway success of the HT 300 Hymnal-Plus<\/a>, a machine that can play 2,700 Christian favorites on a computer sound system at the touch of a remote button. Hymns can be played in a variety of styles, from the somnolently traditional to electronic-meets-guitar-mass (listen here<\/a>), and including a disco version of \u201cAmazing Grace.”<\/p>\n

The machine even allows the option of showing the lyrics, karaoke style, on a screen. Hymn Technology, Ltd. says it has sold more than 100 of the devices since it introduced its latest model six months ago. But British organists shouldn\u2019t worry for their jobs: “We have no wish to make organists redundant and we greatly appreciate them, ” says one vicar<\/a>. “But this might enable them to go away on the odd Sunday.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Church of England has a surfeit of organs, but the ranks of organists to play them on Sunday morning is thinning. The dilemma has led to the runaway success of the HT 300 Hymnal-Plus, a machine that can play 2,700 Christian favorites on a computer sound system at the touch of a remote button.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":275,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nPlay "Rock of Ages," Hal<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2006\/05\/play-rock-of-ages-hal.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Play "Rock of Ages," Hal\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Church of England has a surfeit of organs, but the ranks of organists to play them on Sunday morning is thinning. 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