Author: Greg Scheer

Categories
Church

Family Communion Liturgy

Yesterday at Church of the Servant, we held “family communion,” in which the younger children join the congregation at the table. I wrote musical settings for 5 sections of the service. The goal was to write something simple that could be easily learned by the COS children, who will only take part in communion every two months. Another goal was to train the children for future involvement in worship, so I used the traditional Kyrie, Gloria, Sanctus, Memorial Acclamation, and Amen texts. You can read the liturgy and download the music at the COS Worship blog, or listen to an MP3 of the gathering or communion sections of yesterday’s service.

Categories
Church Demos Psalms

Psalm 81: Sing a Psalm of Joy

Psalm 81 starts with a call to worship, then the rest of the Psalm is God recounting Israel’s unfaithfulness and calling them back. Marie J. Post has a good metrical rendering of the Psalm in the Psalter Hymnal. But you know Greg–he can’t leave well enough alone–he just had to compose a new melody for the text. I decided to emphasize the dialog between the people and God. So the people’s call to worship (Post’s verse 1) becomes the refrain, and the rest (Post’s verses 3-7) become cantor verses.

At the same time I was writing this, I was playing around with GarageBand. Lo, and behold, I ended up turning it into an easy listening pop recording. Kind of anachronistic, I know…

In any case, here’s the MP3. Actually, it’s an M4A, which I guess is the newest generation of MP3. Let me know if you have trouble playing it. Oh wait, I figured out how to make an MP3 in GarageBand. Here’s the real MP3.

Categories
Contests Live

5 for orchestra

About a year ago the Linn-Mar High School Chamber Orchestra premiered my string orchestra composition “5.” You can read a press release or listen to an MP3 of the recording of the concert. Or you can email me and tell me that you’d like to program it for your orchestra. That would make my day.

Categories
Church

Guitarchestra Sunday

All that rehearsing paid off–the Guitarchestra rocked the house last Sunday. Here are three of the songs recorded from the service: Thanks Be to God Our Savior (Psalm 107, Diephouse/Scheer), Come, Ye Sinners, Poor and Needy, and Joyful, Joyful, We Adore You.

Categories
Contests Finale demo

Money in the bank

People do all sorts of things with their free time. Some play sudoku, some watch the Weather Channel; me, I enter song contests. My latest challenge has been to compose music for a college fight song and alma mater. The prize is $1500. ($1000 for the fight song and $500 for the alma mater.) Some people might see this as wasting time. Me, I see it as money in the bank.

Categories
Church Demos

Guitarchestra

At Church of the Servant, there’s a little thing we do called “Guitarchestra.” We bring together as many guitarists, mandolinists, and banjists (is that a word?) as we can into one glorious glob of worship-leading stringiness. This post is for all the members of the COS Guitarchestra who missed rehearsal this week. It’ll give you an idea of how each song sounds. I’m sorry the recordings are so bad–I’m having some serious computer issues. Here are the songs to learn for Sunday, August 5, in order:
Gather Us In, Joyful, Joyful We Adore You, What the Lord Has Done in Me, Thanks Be to God Our Savior, I Will Hide Your Word Inside My Heart, Gracias Señor, Holy, holy, holy Lord (Bell), Come, Ye Sinners, Here I Am to Worship, Before the Throne of God Above, What a Friend We Have in Jesus, Blessed Assurance

Categories
Church Congregational Songs Demos Psalms Retuned hymn Rock and/or Roll

Psalm 82: Stick it to the Man

Update: For sheet music or to adopt this orphan tune, head over to gregscheer.com.

This Sunday at Church of the Servant we sang the Psalter Hymnal version of Psalm 82, “There Where the Judges Gather.” After the service Ron and Deb Rienstra commented that the tune which accompanied the text was too nice. What it really needed was a tune that got across the “stick it to the man” tone of the Psalm.

How could I resist?

I spent the next few days writing and recording this new version of “There Where the Judges Gather.” The tune, appropriately enough, is called “STICK IT TO THE MAN.” Do punk rock and metrical Psalms go together? You be the judge. Listen to the MP3 here.

Categories
Church Congregational Songs Live Psalms

Psalm 30: Sing to God (live at COS)

Update 10/1/20: Sheet music for this song can be downloaded here.

We sang the new setting of Psalm 30 this Sunday at COS and it went surprisingly well for a new congregational tune. People picked it up quickly and gained momentum each verse. Listen to the recording from the 11am service or download the final version of the PDF file (see link above).

One person remarked that he wouldn’t have known that it was a Psalm if it hadn’t said so in the liturgy. I didn’t know if he meant that as a good thing or a bad thing. Jack, COS’s pastor thought the words were great. He thought he was paying me a compliment until he realized I had only written the music. My wife Amy pronounced the song “okay.”

Even in the face of such ambivalent reactions,  I remain undaunted! My calling in life is to fill up the world with so-so music, and I intend to do it with gusto!

Categories
Church Congregational Songs Demos Finale demo Psalms

Psalm 30: Sing to God That All May Hear You

Update 10/1/20: Sheet music for this song can be downloaded here.

Once again, I’ve turned to Michael Morgan’s 1999 Psalter for Christian Worship as the starting point for a new Psalm setting, this time Psalm 30. I like the way Morgan places the joyous sentiments of the Psalm text in the first half of each verse, and the lament and supplication in the second half. That allows the musical setting to reinforce the meaning of the text in each verse.

Morgan recommends the tune ABBOT’S LEIGH (“God Is Here”) for the text. That’s a beautiful tune, but I just couldn’t leave well enough alone. I wrote a draft of a new tune one afternoon last week, obsessed about it the rest of the evening, revised it the next morning, got some helpful feedback from my friend David that afternoon, then finished it by dinner time.

We’ll sing it at COS as the lectionary Psalm this Sunday. In the meantime, you can download a PDF file of the music (see link above) or listen to a cheesy Finalefied MP3.

Categories
Church Live

Psalm 5

Yesterday, we sang a new setting of Psalm 5 that I composed for two narrators and congregational refrain. I was quite pleased with the way it sounded, though I’ll probably raise the key and make a few minor changes. If you want the music, just email me. Otherwise, take a listen.