Author: Greg Scheer

Categories
Church

Shout to the North – fugue intro thingy

I’m helping with worship at the WCRC event in G.R.usalem this week. On Wednesday morning there’s a band and a string quintet leading the worship service. I thought it would be nice to put them together at some point in the service. After all, the theme of the conference is “unity of the Spirit in the bonds of peace.” Shouldn’t that include praise bands and string quintets joining together in sweet harmony?

So I wrote an intro for the Delirious song “Shout to the North” that bats the main theme back and forth between the strings in fugal fashion. Once they finish the intro, the band comes in. The strings come back with a more traditional pop string line when the refrain comes around.

I normally don’t post arrangements of copyrighted material, but this bears such little resemblance to the original that I thought Martin Smith would be okay with it. Martin, take a listen to the MP3 or look at the PDF score and let me know if you want me to take it down, okay?

Categories
Contests

Get out the vote!

Hey everyone,

Usually this blog is strictly reserved for tasty musical morsels in MP3 or PDF-size bites. But I’m breaking my own rule tonight to tell you about an opportunity for you to help push a recent post from also-ran obscurity into the limelight of contest success.

You’ll remember that I recently entered a remix contest, in which I turned a Celldweller (hard-hitting, angst-filled techno rock) song into a laid-back lounge version. Well, it seems that users of the FiXT Remix community found my rendition interesting enough to place it in the top 20 of 82 entries. But now the hard work begins. We have to get out the vote! If enough people vote for my song I will be included in a compilation, gain respect in the techno community, and most importantly I’ll win stuff.

So you need to put down what you’re doing. Right. Now. And go to http://www.fixtremix.com/news/v/vote-for-celldweller-quot-the-best-its-gonna-get-quot-winners/170/  to vote for the “Lounge Mix by Greg Scheer.” There will be extra goodwill for anyone who tweets this, tells a friend, or places an announcement in their church bulletin.

While you’re heading over to FiXT Remix to vote for my song, you can take a listen to the newly mastered version of the song.

Categories
Contests Production music

TopGolf Theme Song Contest

Faithful followers of this music blog know that I love nothing more than a good song contest. I’m not sure if it’s the thrill of the chase, the fun of donning a completely different musical guise for each contest, or the quirky satisfaction of adding “winner of the Robot Dance Song Contest” to my resume–but I can’t say no to a contest.

My latest entry into the ring is the TopGolf Online Game Theme Song Contest. Listen to my rousing entry: Bring It On! My goal was to create a 30 second spot that would sound good as a radio spot on a classic rock station. If it’s successful, I’ll move into writing music for beer commercials–where the real money is.

By the way, if you’re wondering about the brawny man who does the voiceover in the middle of the song–it’s me.

Categories
Uncategorized

If You’re Weary

Here is a simple little song based on Matthew 11:28 that I started in Uganda, finished when I got back to the US, and premiered in Singapore. Now I’ve finally recorded it.

The trick about recording is that it’s never good enough. This was going to be a quick and dirty demo, but I kept fussing with it as I’ve been learning more about mixing and mastering. Finally, I had to say “enough’s enough.” So here’s the gussied up demo of “If You’re Weary.”

Categories
Colin

All Over the Map with Colin

My across-the-pond collaborator, Colin Gordon-Farleigh, has just signed two new singers. One is a young woman named Jennifer Douglas who did such a nice job with If I Had Wings, and the other is a male country singer whom I haven’t yet heard. Naturally, they need new songs, so I just finished up two new settings of Colin’s lyrics.

The first one is a straight up country song called “I’m Just a Country Boy at Heart.” This is me channeling my inner pick-up-drivin’-cowboy. (He’s in there; he just doesn’t come out very often.) Check out the MP3 or PDF.

The second is a smooth pop/jazz number named “Where Did You Go?” I hear it as sort of a Sade or Norah Jones number, and give it my sultry best on vocals. On the demo you’ll also hear my attempt to mimic Wes Montgomery on guitar. It’s easy to take performers for granted until you try to do what they do. Listen to the MP3 or try out your own version with the PDF lead sheet.

Categories
Contests electronic

Your Perfect World

Now for something–as Monty Python would say–completely different. Usually I post my own compositions on this blog, but this time I’ll be posting an arrangement of sorts. A remix, to be exact.

You’ve probably heard pop songs that have been released, and then various remixes are issued at later dates–dance remixes, extended club versions, etc. In the world of electronica some artists make their “stems” (raw tracks from the recording) available so that fans and DJs can freely create remixes. One such case is Celldweller, who not only made their stems available online, but are hosting a remix contest.

How could I resist?

You can get a feel for the original song from this YouTube video. Then take a listen to how most people remixed the song–they usually lean a bit heavier toward the dance/techno side of things, but it’s still similar to the original. Me? I couldn’t leave well enough alone. I decided to recast the song as if it were a performance by a band of lounge lizards from the 1950s. Go to the FiXT Remix website where my rendition resides. While you’re there, why don’t you go ahead and vote a bunch of times to bump up my ranking.

Categories
Art Music

Dinosaur

dinosaur logo

Long before I became the composer of music my mother generally enjoys, I was the composer of music my mother generally responded to with non-committal accolades like “Did it sound like you wanted it to?” (I.e. “Please tell me they played it wrong.”) Some call my early compositions “scary monster music.” I like to think of it as street cred.

But let’s not dally on questions of whether I’ve sold out or seen the light; let’s get right to the music. One of my compositions from my grad school days was called “Dinosaur,” so named because it was thin on one end, much much thicker in the middle, and thin again on the other end.  It’s an aleatoric composition, which means that instead of reading from a score that tells exactly which pitches to play and when, the musicians are given small chunks of music and freedom to improvise within certain parameters. For example, “repeat this phrase for the next 20 seconds” or “improvise on this scale in duet with the Violin 2.” Perhaps the most famous example of aleatory is Terry Riley’s In C.

Take a listen to the Carnegie Mellon University New Music Ensemble taking on a scary monster, in this case a Dinosaur.

Categories
Colin

If Only I Had Wings

A song that I wrote with Colin Gordon-Farleigh in 2008, If Only I Had Wings, has now been recorded by Jennifer Douglas. She has a beautiful voice and does a great job with the song. But wait, there’s more! There’s also a video of the song. Check it out:

Categories
Contests

The Also Ran Songbook

As you know, I like nothing more than entering composition contests. More specifically, I love winning composition contests.

My most recent lunge for the elusive musical ring was the WCRC hymn contest. A number of international Reformed organizations are coming together this year to form one mega-international-Reformed organization called the World Council of Reformed Churches. To celebrate this historic event, they sent out a call for songs based on Ephesians 4–unity in the Spirit. I entered two songs.

The first, “Make Us One within You Spirit,” has a history of rejection. When I was named runner-up (which is something like be named “the guy who lost and whose name will be made public”) in the CRC Sesquicentennial hymn contest, I thought it would a nice gesture to compose a new tune for Bert Polman’s winning text, which had been paired with the ubiquitous NETTLETON (“Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing”). I was quite pleased with my new tune–which I named SASQUATCH, for obvious reasons–but it slowly made it’s way to the back burner. When the WCRC Ephesians 4 contest came along, I decided that SASQUATCH would make an excellent, regal tune that would fit the festive uniting event well. I set to work on a Ephesians 4/unity text, and came up with a Trinitarian text that I thought would be a shoe in for the prize.

I was wrong.

I also entered a more Taize-like hymn named “There Is One Body.” Not knowing the setting in which the hymn would be sung, I thought a more ecumenical, liturgical song would work well for communion or gathering. So I wrote one with a verse/refrain structure. It is not as bold as the first song, but has a good flow between cantor and congregation, organ and piano.

Wrong again.

The judges chose five (count ’em, FIVE) winners, and neither of mine were on the list. To add insult to injury, a number of the judges are friends. Ouch! (Granted, the submissions were anonymous. But still, ouch!) This is on the heels of losing the Astoria bicentennial song contest, being disqualified from the CRC justice song contest (I could have been a contender, but instead they made me be a judge: Living Justly and From the City), and countless publisher rejections. While I lick my wounds, take a listen to my award-losing songs:

Make Us One within Your Spirit: MP3 (Update 10/1/20: sheet music available for download here)

There Is One Body: PDF, MP3

PS – I’m still waiting to hear about the NPM mass contest and the Grand Rapids Google Fiber video contest. To keep track of all this, I’ve created a new category for blogposts called “contests.”

Categories
electronic

The soundtrack of success

On Saturday, my wife Amy successfully bench-pressed 125lbs in a competition. I’m so proud. (And relieved: it’s been an intense month of training and dieting.) To celebrate I created a soundtrack for the movie of the lift. No bench-pressing movie would be complete without the riff from “Iron Man,” and no pumped up competition soundtrack is complete without including Queen’s “We Are the Champion.” So I rolled them into one. Check out the video at my wife’s blog: Wait for It.