Author: Greg Scheer

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Church Demos

A Mark of Grace

At this year’s Calvin Worship Symposium, I’m planning music for a service that uses the story of Cain and Abel as the sermon scripture. As you can imagine there are a TON of congregational songs about that one…

Neal Plantinga is preaching, and described his sermon as exploring the mark of Cain as punishment and protection. Cain’s “mark of grace” is a foreshadowing of Christ on the cross–the ultimate punishment that leads to the greatest blessing. Though I found a few hymns that got in the ballpark of the sermon theme (“God of Grace and God of Glory” and “Praise, My Soul, the King of Heaven”), I decided I’d give a go at writing one especially for the occasion.

The result is the appropriately titled “A Mark of Grace.” Check out the PDF score and Finalified MP3. This is still a working draft, but I decided to post it to my music blog so I wouldn’t ruin my Christmas thinking about it. This has been one of the more difficult things I’ve written in a while. In the first draft, the lyrics got the point across, but were too informational. That is, I fit in all the right words, but singing a list of characters from Genesis is not particularly inspirational. Plus, my verses were too long, so it felt tiresome.* In my second draft, I struck upon the idea of taking the original 16 line verses and trimming them to 8 lines of verse and 4 lines of pre-chorus. The pre-chorus provided a musical ramp between the verse and chorus that felt just right. But still, the rhyme scheme was so tight and the theological ideas so expansive that I had very little wiggle room with the lyrics. By draft #3 (this one) I felt like things had started to settle in lyrically and musically, though I’m thinking seriously of changing to 4/4 time throughout the whole song.

I think it’s best that I sit on it for a few days to see how it feels with a little distance. Feel free to give me feedback.

* But I kind of liked this section of the first draft:
Like Adam in the garden
Like Eve eating the fruit
Our family tree grows crooked
It’s poisoned at the root.

Categories
Choir Church

My Soul at COS L&C

Sunday evening was Church of the Servant’s Lessons & Carols service. As always, it was the highlight of Advent and Christmas for me. The highlight for me from a compositional standpoint, was that after 12 years I finally got a good recording of “My Soul Will Magnify the Lord.” Take a listen and you’ll figure out why it hasn’t been performed or published much. It’s hard.

Also included were my arrangements of “On Jordan’s Banks (PUER NOBIS),” “All Earth Is Waiting,” and “Go Tell It on the Mountain.” Check them out at http://www.churchoftheservantcrc.org/2009-lessons-carols.

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Uncategorized

Go Tell It on the Mountain: strings, brass, and piano

Update: Sheet music for this arrangement is now available at gregscheer.com.

I’ve got lots to do for Sunday’s Lessons & Carols service at Church of the Servant (6pm, if you’re interested), but true to form I feel the compulsion to add one more thing to my to do list: write a last minute arrangement. Here’s a simple arrangement of “Go Tell It on the Mountain” for strings, brass and piano. Nothing too fancy, but if you’re using the song in one of your Christmas services and you happen to have brass, strings and rhythm section available, this should do the trick. Listen to the MP3.

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Church

Savior of the Nations, Come

The great Advent hymn “Savior of the Nations, Come” has been on my mind a lot this week, no doubt in part because of Bruce Benedict’s excellent rendition. As I planned for next week’s service, I knew the Joyful Noise Orchestra would sound great playing it. I wanted to give the more experienced players a little something to sink their teeth into, so I channeled Bach (Bach on a very bad day, that is) and came up with a short fugal introduction for the hymn. Check out the PDF or MP3.

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Uncategorized

Prairie Prelude in the Philippines

Update 10/6/20: Sheet music for this song can be downloaded here.

It’s always a mystery to me: who is visiting my website or subscribing to my blog? which songs are they using? where are the songs traveling? YouTube has answered some of these questions, and raised others.

I found out that my song “Prairie Prelude” (see link above for MP3 and sheet music) is used as the soundtrack to a video of a church retreat in Baguio City, Philippines. I guess it’s not entirely surprising that a church in the Philippines is singing my music. After all, it is called the world wide web, and over the years I’ve had communications with people from just about every continent. What seems more unusual is that they chose this particular song. “Prairie Prelude” hasn’t ever been published, has only a one-take-one-mic demo to accompany it, and I’ve never even used it in a worship service. I think it’s a good song that would really shine with the right treatment (Steve Bell, are you listening?) but that time hasn’t come yet. So it just seems odd that someone from the Philippines scrolled through the 50 songs at my congregational song page and was drawn in particular to “Prairie Prelude.” Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s fantastic. Just mysteriously fantastic. Maybe Arielle Hipe who sang the song on the video can help clear up the mystery.

But enough chatter. Here’s the video:

Categories
Church Demos Rock and/or Roll

Keep Your Lamps Trimmed and Burning

On Sunday night Rebecca Jordan Heys preached on the parable of the ten bridesmaids and asked me to conclude the sermon by leading the spiritual “Keep Your Lamps Trimmed and Burning.” Like many people, I know the song from the popular choral arrangement by Andre Thomas, but it has traveled far and wide, as you can hear in this YouTube video by Blind Willie Johnson and this one by Hot Tuna. In any case, on Friday afternoon as I played around with the song and tried to figure out how best to lead it, I began laying down some tracks in Logic Pro and came up with this little demo.

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Church

Toads in Tiaras

There’s a great song in Sing! A New Creation called “Toda la tierra/All Earth Is Waiting.” (The first phrase in Spanish produces the wonderfully silly sound-alike in English: Toads in Tiaras.) I use it a few times each Advent, but it always feels a little incomplete–like it needs something to soften the somewhat abrupt ending of each verse. So last year I vowed I would write a little refrain for the song to use this year in Advent. It’s just a four bar phrase with a turn around, but it gives the song a chance to breathe. As my composition teacher used to say, “compositions are like buildings–they need doors and windows.” I also wrote a different piano arrangement. Here’s the demo MP3, and below is a picture of the refrain.All Earth Is Waiting, refrain

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Congregational Songs Live Psalms

Rest in the Lord, at Calvin Chapel

My friend Paul Ryan asked me to lead one of the “Sing a New Song” chapels at Calvin College this Fall. I had originally thought I’d introduce one of the songs from the “Global Songs for Worship” collection I’m editing, but as the date got closer I decided to teach my song based on Psalm 127–“Rest in the Lord, My Soul.” This decision wasn’t based (solely) on shameless self-promotion. It’s just that I realized it would be a good opportunity to lead a group of non-musicians through the process of transplanting a Psalm into a particular musical context. In the allotted 25 minutes we talked about the themes and difficulties of the original text, Michael Morgan’s metrical version of the Psalm, and my musical setting of Morgan’s text.

Don’t believe me? Then watch the video! Go to the Calvin Chapel web page, then choose the November 9, 2009 chapel in the scroll bar on the right. At about 4 minutes and 30 seconds into the video I begin my talk.

Categories
Choir Church

My Soul Will Magnify the Lord

As we enter that blessed season known to music ministers as “when will this ever end?” I find myself considering a Magnificat that is near and dear to my heart. I wrote “My Soul Will Magnify the Lord” while I was at Bellefield Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh. It’s part of a series of pieces based on the wonderful canticles found in Luke. The ingredients are choir, rhythm section, brass and soloist, all boiled up in a pop/rock/classical/jazz stew. And they’re all blazingly difficult to pull off well. (I’d get published a lot more if I could tame my muse.)

One of the most unusual features of this particular Magnificat is that it ends with the genealogy found in Luke 3. Crazy, you say? Like a fox, I say. No, really, it is strangely powerful to hear Mary sing about God’s mercy extending from generation to generation, and then hear their names sung one after another. One choir member at the time thought the idea was so unique that I should patent it.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get a good recording from the Bellefield performance, so all I can share with you as the “choir of Greg” version.  You can see the music here. I might include it in this year’s Lessons & Carols service on December 13 at 6pm at Church of the Servant, so if you’re in the Grand Rapids area you should plan to join us.

Categories
electronic Rock and/or Roll

GR Press Phone Message

Last week someone wrote a nasty letter to the editor about a friend from church. It’s a long story, but what it boils down to is that a group of people in Grand Rapids are poised and ready to write mean-spirited letters to the editor of the GR Press any time they read key words such as “evolution,” “homosexuality,” or “President Obama.” But I guess they’re not the only ones who feel they are saving society one letter at a time–I was lured into the fray and wrote what I believe to be a beacon of reason in a turbulent sea of idiocy.

I was pleasantly surprised that one of these folks actually left a phone message for me at the church letting me know just how misguided my letter to the editor was. Really, it ranks up there with being lumped in with Robert Webber and the Antichrist by Jimmy Swaggart’s wife, Frances

In any case, I decided that this little aural work of art needed a frame, so I created a bed of music to accompany her message. Of course, I’ve edited out some of the details like the caller’s name and phone number, but you’ll get a pretty good idea of her rhetoric by listening to this MP3. It will also give you an opportunity to dance.