Category: Church

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Arrangement Church Congregational Songs Global Live

O Come, Holy Spirit (Sarwar)

harmoniumOne of the great things about my church is that we have a constant stream of interesting people joining us from all around the world. One of them is Eric Sarwar, a musician from Pakistan. Eric and I have collaborated before. This time we worked on a song of invocation, “O Come, Holy Spirit.”

As with many of Eric’s songs, they look simple on the page, but take on a life of their own in worship. We began our service today with a quiet tanpura drone and improvisation on the song’s raga (mode). Once the tone was set, the whole Guitarchestra came in and the congregation joined us: PDF, MP3

Later in the service the communion music began with another Sarwar/Scheer collaboration, “O Lord, May Your Kingdom Come.” That led into a set of songs that flowed so well that I include it here in its entirety. Be forewarned: the MP3 is 22 minutes long (31MB). If you have the time, though, it gives you an idea of how the communion section of a Church of the Servant service runs: COS communion 6/21/15.

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Church Congregational Songs Psalms

Psalm 80: Restore Us, O God! (Guitarchestra)

The FDA says: Limit your use of 80 mg Simvastatin. But you can use Psalm 80 all you like.

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

After a sluggish round of correspondence (due to travel for me and a new teaching position for Naaman) we’ve finally brought “Restore Us, O God!” from draft into final form. I think it was worth the wait. Particularly unique is its Klezmer-ish feel that captures the lament of the Psalm well.

I was excited enough about it that I didn’t let the Guitarchestra leave rehearsal last night until they recorded it with me. Two times through and you get a pristine recording like this: that’s the magic of Gstra!

I think you’ll be excited enough about it that you won’t want to wait until December 20, 2015 when it comes up in the lectionary next. Go ahead. Sing it now. MP3

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Arrangement Choir Church Congregational Songs Live Psalms

Kimbrough’s Psalm 104

Update 12/11/21: Sheet music for this song is now available at gregscheer.com.

I’ve featured the music of Wendell Kimbrough before, and today he makes a return appearance. An honor to be sure…

Earlier this year his setting of Psalm 104, “Oh, Rejoice in All Your Works,” won the COS New Psalm Contest. It had its church premiere in January and we’ve sung it a few times since then. This Sunday, Pentecost, the lectionary called for Psalm 104. As fate* would have it, the choir, piano, and a brass quintet were scheduled to lead that morning, so I arranged the song for those instruments.

I was really pleased with how it sounded. Sometimes the transition from guitar-driven folk song to piano-led congregational hymn can be awkward, but in this case, it brought out a whole new majestic side to the song. I hear a best-selling choral anthem in this, don’t you?

*or providence, depending on how you roll theologically.

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Arrangement Choir Church Congregational Songs Live

Pentecostal Splendor at COS

This Fall I arranged Pentecostal Splendor for Calvin College’s Lessons & Carols service. It was premiered beautifully, though I wasn’t able to track down a recording for my blog.

Naturally, when Pentecost arrived at my own church, I thought of using this new piece in my own context. Brass? Check. 60 voice choir? 1/3 check. Organ? Not so much…

I retooled the organ part for piano and called in favors with every singer I knew. The result can be heard here: MP3

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Arrangement Church

What Wondrous Love, quartet

clint_harris
Clint Harris, 1954-2015

Update 3/12/22: Sheet music for this arrangement is now available at gregscheer.com.

Clint Harris died this week. I didn’t know him well, but everyone seems to agree he was a man who lived fully and loved deeply.

As often as I can, I compose a little something for church member funerals. In this case, the family asked that at some point in the service I sing and play my guitar, and I thought it would be a nice touch to round out the guitar with the string players who would be at the service.

I returned to one of my favorite songs, “What Wondrous Love.” I’ve arranged it before, but keep returning to it, perhaps because it’s one of those songs that is so elusively beautiful that I hope the next time I’ll get it right. It’s also perfect for a funeral, because it begins with the story of redemption and ends in eternity.

This was recorded as people walked in before the service, so it’s quite noisy.

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Arrangement Church Congregational Songs Live Psalms

Psalm 133: Behold the Goodness

james_guitarchestraIn Psalms for All Seasons is a setting of Psalm 133 (Behold the Goodness of Our Lord, PfAS 133A) that seemed just right for the Guitarchestra this past Sunday. The melody, DETROIT, comes from the Kentucky Harmony hymnal. Like a lot of early American hymn tunes, it has a rugged beauty that just won’t let you go. These tunes often benefit from a more rustic arrangement, rather than the smooth voice leading you find in hymnals, so I provided one.

Here you can see me rehearsing the song this past Sunday, shadowed by the youngest member of the Guitarchestra, James.

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Arrangement Choir Church Congregational Songs Live

Kimbrough: In You, Lord, I Refuge Take

Wendell Kimbrough has appeared in this blog before. Indeed, this song has appeared previously. But for this Palm Sunday I wrote a choral part for his setting of Psalm 31 that I thought deserved a new entry. As you’ll hear on the recording the flute introduces the melody and plays a tag after each verse. Then on verse 3, the flute plays a descant on top of the singing. In verse 4, everyone cuts out but the congregational melody and an a cappella choir accompaniment. It’s really a nice effect, if I don’t say so myself.

The thing I like about arrangements like this is that they’re pretty simple, with just two pages of music, but they have a lot of impact on how you hear the song.

Extra bonus recording: Me singing Sydney “Lord of the Dance” Carter’s song “Bitter Was the Night.”

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Arrangement Church Congregational Songs Finale demo

O Sacred Head, descants

Update 3/22/22: Sheet music for these descants is now available at gregscheer.com.

I can’t let a Holy Week go by without writing a little something, right? Here is a double descant that we’ll use as the intro and over the third verse of “O Sacred Head, Now Wounded” on Palm Sunday: MP3.

“Didn’t Bach already write that?” You ask. Why, yes, he did. But he wrote it over a different harmonization, and I just didn’t feel I could ask my pianist to learn one more thing for that service. (She already has 21 songs to learn. Ouch!) But my flutist is always eager for a challenge, so I figured I’d give her one.

It should be noted that this is pretty flexible. A flute and tenor recorder can play it as written, or two violins could play it, or the flute could play the top part without the recorder, or one instrument could start on the second part on the second to last verse and finish with the top part on the last verse, or…

Feel free to send me recordings so I can hear what you came up with.

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Arrangement Church Congregational Songs Live Retuned hymn

Kimbrough: Mighty God

I don’t usually post other people’s music, but I’ll make an exception here. Actually, I had a small hand in this, as it’s a collaboration of Wendell Kimbrough (http://wendellk.com/), Ludwig van Beethoven (no website), and me (www.gregscheer.com).

Wendell used the “Ode to Joy” melody from the 9th symphony and wrote words based on the post-communion prayer in the Book of Common Prayer. Then he added an “Amen” that is simple, but just right. My only role was to provide the verse chords from a previous “Ode to Joy” arrangement. Role up all the ingredients into one, and you have a tasty musical burrito served fresh by the Guitarchestra: Mighty God, We Thank and Praise You, MP3.

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Arrangement Church Congregational Songs Global Psalms

Psalm 137: By the Babylonian Rivers

Update: This song is now available at gregscheer.com.

“By the Babylonian Rivers” is one of my favorite songs from Global Songs for Worship and one of my favorite Psalm settings in general. We used it at COS last week and I decided that the line “Lord God, hear your lonely band” fairly demanded an instrumental interlude. I wrote one, and Kurt (accordion) and Emily (violin) took it home: MP3.