A while back I posted a recording of the Chagall String Quartet playing the piece they commissioned from me, called “6.” The string quartet that preceded that is a zippy little thing called “Jig.” Whereas 6 explores African rhythms, Jig is a melding of Celtic style and classical string quartet, with a little Bach and Dr. Who thrown in for free. I’m still waiting for the Kronos Quartet to adopt this as an encore piece. If anyone knows them, put in a good word for me…
Author: Greg Scheer
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Adopt this tune
I recently composed a new hymn tune using a meter of 11.10.11.10.11.10. The tune has been driving me crazy the last few days. I just can’t get it out of my head. I’m not sure if that’s good or bad. In any case, I’m trying to exorcise it from mind by posting it here.
It joins a number of other “orphan tunes” that you can read about at my other website (www.gregscheer.com). Maybe it’s an orphan because it’s written in a meter that narrows it down to about five existing texts. Maybe it’s an orphan because I gave it the tune name “SYCOPHANT.” Maybe it’s an orphan because you haven’t yet written a brilliant new text to go with it. Take a look or a listen. What would be really helpful is if some kind, semi-informed person (David Fuentes, where are you when I need you?) would give me some feedback–is this tune stuck in my head because it’s a perfectly crafted work of miniature genius or because it’s cloying clump of dump detritus?
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Travelling
Last night I finished the first of three new songs with Colin Gordon-Farleigh that will be part of a new country CD. The song is called “Travelling (It’s Been a Long, Long Trail)” and you are hereby invited to listen or look. Willie Nelson, look out!
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Our Father – rough excerpt
Update 10/1/20: Sheet music for this song can be downloaded here.
Here is another rough cut from my proposed CD of rock and/or roll. It’s called “Our Father.” If you guessed that it’s based on the Lord’s Prayer, you’re correct. This won’t generally be a religious CD, but I couldn’t resist including this one.
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Fritze
Back in grad school I took a computer music class. About the same time I got really into minimalism. As luck would have it, I got a visit from my Austrian friend Martin Pellizzari right when my final project was due. So I recorded Martin reading a poem by Wilhelm Busch, then sliced and diced, looped and lapsed, added a surprise ending, and voila! Out came Fritze.
Once I finish the global songbook I’ve been working on for the CICW, I want to start recording a CD. Yeah, that’s right, a real CD, with songs, shrink wrap, and everything. A CD chock full of all my rock and roll hits. (As rock and roll as a 41 year old man can muster.) My plan is to post rough drafts of some of the songs here at my music blog so I can get feedback early on from all of you. The first of the batch is “Walking the Wire.” Like I said, this is just a rough mix of part of the song, but I’d love to hear what you think.
Here’s my choir singing a recently penned little song called “Jesus, Precious Jesus.” I was joking with them that I was attempting to skim off some of the royalty stream that usually flows to “Father, I Adore You” and “Alleluia.” But that just a joke. Mostly. What I was really trying to do was compose something very simple for congregation that is supports a sturdy Trinitarian theology. (Only the first of three verses is heard here.) The version here is a four-part, hymn-style version. When I find the time I’ll write out an accompaniment for the Black gospel version I hear in my head.
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55 Feet
I just finished converting my Live and Thinking cassette of 1986 (ish) to digital format. Much of it you will never be allowed to hear, but one song still holds up fairly well. “55 Feet” was born from a convergence of two fears: a fear of heights and fear of drowning. Here’s how the two came together. I was offered a job painting houses with a guy from my brother’s church. He made it clear from the start of the day that he was…unstable. For one thing, he forced us to listen to Christian radio the whole day. But that’s not all. He also never offered my coworker and me a break, even though we were climbing up and down rickety ladders from 8am until well past noon. As I stood up on the ladder painting, I thought of how quickly I would die if I fainted and fell off the ladder. With that thought, my mind turned to other gruesome deaths, specifically a story I had heard about two divers losing their way in the immense network of underground rivers that run below the ground in northern Florida. In my song, the story is told from the point of view of the rescue diver who found their bodies. He is so jolted by what he finds that he loses all hope in humanity, and is standing at a precipice preparing to jump to his death.
Gruesome? Yes. But it makes for a riveting story. Take a listen to “55 Feet.”
By the way, the day ended with crazy Mr. Painter guy asking if we could take a “quick stop” at his house on the way home. He proceeded to take a shower and get ready for a date. I sat in his house for about an hour with nothing to do, exhausted from my near-death painting experience, waiting to finally get home. I declined the next time he offered me a job…
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Did Greg Invent Techno?
Back in 1987, I went in the URI recording studio to lay down a few songs on the 4 track reel-to-reel. The first two were “Walking” and “1,000 Hands” with Stephen Brown and Royce Gibson under the moniker Canon Tallis. The next was music for a short film called No Sneakers, which, incidentally, I never heard or saw in its final form. The final song was a sonic experiment called “Was Habe Ich Gemacht?” (“What Have I Done?”) that was comprised of layers of my bass and voice, sometimes at half speed and double speed. The final result sounds suspiciously like techno. But in 1987 techno was only a fledgling movement in Detroit. And I had never been to Detroit. So I must have invented it. Or co-invented it. While you wait for history to vindicate me, take a listen to “Was Habe Ich Gemacht?“
This was a long, sad week at Church of the Servant, as one of our members died unexpectedly. As I planned music for the memorial service, it brought me back to a memorial service I led when I first began music ministry. “We Worship You” is a song I wrote in memory of Chuck Rosemeyer that continues to express for me the lament and trust of Job 1:21–“The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised.”