I have a question for the folks to the east of the Atlantic.

As any good American tourist I went into a fair number old of C of E churches both large & small while in England. I'm sort of compulsive about checking out hymnals when in a church. I saw very few with music and the word only books did not list either meter or tune names. I'd like to think this means the music director/organist has options on what tune to play, but suspect they have versions with the music pretty fixed. So what's up? The only chuches in the US that would provide word only books are the ones doing the really old way of the Primitive/Regular Baptists or ones totally into contemporary prise music. Even though the majority of the people can't read music, half the singers I know who can read music & sing harmonies learned to do it singing hymns in church. One of the big complaints in our choir is that too many hymns in our hymnal do not have harmonies. Is there a sort of official stance that all singing should be unison? If people aren't given a chance to learn I can see why they'd end up with only 50-60 that they know.

Is this word only situation also the case for the non-established churches? Are the books you folks have been mentioning used in the established church? What churches do use them, or are they used more in informal settings? How do people feel about not having music, or did I just happen to hit the wrong ones?