The Musical Diary of Greg ScheerI was recently commissioned to arrange “In Your Pentecostal Splendor” for the Calvin College Lessons & Carols service. This hymn might be new to you, but at my church we sing it every week during one of our Pentecost season liturgies. The text was written by John E. Spears in 1916 and the tune EDEN CHURCH was written by Dale Wood in 1959. As far as I know, this text/tune combination only appears in our church’s Joyful Noises song collection.
There are various traditions of Psalm-singing: Metrical, Responsorial, etc. My church generally feels most comfortable with the metrical Psalms that are part of our Reformed heritage. However, there are merits to each approach, so I try to include as many song styles as possible in our psalmody.
Last week the lectionary called for Psalm 105:1-6, 37-45, a Psalm which opens with praise, then follows with the story of God providing manna, quails, and water in the wilderness. Existing settings are slim, seldom mentioning Meribah and Massah, which are an essential connecting point to the Old Testament reading. I decided that the world needed a new responsorial setting of the Psalm.*
Responsorial singing, you’ll remember, is when a leader sings/chants verses and the congregation responds with a refrain. The key to a good responsorial setting is to have a quickly learnable, highly memorable refrain for the congregation, and a chant tone for the choir that has a logical, flowing harmonic progression. In this case, I decided to include a light rhythmic piano accompaniment, which is pretty unusual in this style. (Out of the box: it’s where you’ll find me.) I’ll spare you the gory details of Joseph Gelineau, the Grail Psalter, and sprung rhythm, and simply let you listen to a recording from the service or take a peek at the music.
*The need is deep, so you may not yet have felt your need of my new Psalm 105 setting. It will come.
My sabbatical ended, fully and officially, as I returned to worship leading at Church of the Servant this Sunday. I wanted to make sure people noticed that I was back–and had warm feelings about continuing to pay my salary–so I wrote a new setting of Psalm 149 for the service. You can read more about the song in a previous post.
Below is a recording from the service. I had the idea for the repeated notes in the strings while I was running the day before and was quite pleased with how they sounded. With all those talented musicians and a congregation that sings better than most choirs, it’s hard to go wrong!
Update 3/12/22: Sheet music for this song is now available at gregscheer.com.
Listen: MP3 (Yucky one-take demo).
Look: See link above.
My church follows the lectionary, a three year cycle of scripture readings. Generally speaking that’s a really good thing. But every once in a while you hit on one of those “difficult” scriptures. (I guess that’s the point.) On September 7th the lectionary Psalm will be Psalm 149. Unlike its kinder, gentler siblings, Psalm 148 and 150, this Psalm starts off with a “sing to the Lord a new song” theme, but quickly descends into a savage war cry: “Let the high praises of God be in their throats and two-edged swords in their hands, to execute vengeance on the nations and punishment on the peoples.” Yikes! It sounds like death metal lyrics or the “Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition” of antiquity!
I began searching for a suitable musical setting of the Psalm and didn’t find much. The front runner concluded with the line, “sing praises for aye.” I just can’t see myself singing “aye” in worship unless it’s on “bring a pirate to church” Sunday.
So I set about writing a new one. First, I consulted some commentaries. It turns out that Psalm 149 is in two parts (v1-4, v5-9), sandwiched by hallelujahs. The first half praises God for salvation. The second half praises God for victory. It’s the second half that is so uncomfortable for modern readers. It sounds triumphalistic, nationalistic, and downright bloody. I’m not one to jump right to allegorical interpretations, but I’m also not comfortable with promoting the idea that we (The USA? Israel?) execute judgment on the pagans. I didn’t want to soften God’s judgment–God is, after all, the King of kings–but I took the sword out of our hands, and emphasized the justice of God’s reign rather than vengeance on non-believers. I don’t know that I got it just right, but it’s certainly better than your Psalm 149 song!
NOTE: I updated the melody on 8/29/14 to give people a place to breathe. It is now three 8th notes closer to perfection!
I’ve been in Richmond working with five talented young songwriters in the Urban Doxology Songwriting Internship. Their task: write great new songs for urban churches, using East End Fellowship as a test congregation. But what kind of songs should they be? Should they mimic hip hop? “Urbanify” songs from the CCLI charts? Continue the black gospel tradition? A little of all three?
I figured I had given them enough grief about their songs over the last few weeks that it would be unfair for me not to give it a try myself. What I came up with has a Bruno Mars “Locked Out of Heaven” feel in the beginning, some juicy gospel chords in the chorus, and a modern P&W style repeated bridge. (That doesn’t make it three times as good as a mono-style song, I just thought it was interesting enough to note.) Lyrically, I decided that an urban song could (should?) have simple, direct lyrics that would relate to a wide variety of educational backgrounds (this is true at EEF, at least). I was also eager to return to the basics of salvation and righteousness in Christ. We shouldn’t get tired of that, right?
Here’s the MP3 I recorded on my computer’s mic with just my voice and a guitar. (Granted, I had some help from Logic Pro X’s drummer and octave transpose pedal.) The recording makes me sound insanely white. I’m confident that if the interns sing it, it will quickly sound more urban.
1. Imprisoned in a pit of shame,
That I had dug with my own hands.
Locked within these prison walls
Of my own making.
Everywhere the smell of sin—
Regrets, remorse, a heart of pain.
And I had given up all hope
Of salvation.
CHORUS
Jesus paid the debt that I could never pay:
his life for mine, his blood divine made a way.
All that I can give is the ransomed life I live;
Spend all my days a debtor to God’s grace.
All that I can give is the ransomed life I live,
and I give it as an offering of praise.
2. Released from such a debt of sin,
Redeemed from certain death I live
Renewed to the holy radiance
of my Savior.
Live as a debtor to his love.
Live in his grace, it is enough.
Live every day in confidence
Of his favor. CHORUS
BRIDGE
In Jesus Christ I am made right.
In Jesus Christ I have life.
3. Nothing I have ever done
or will ever do will change his love.
He looks on me and sees his Son;
Sees me righteous.
Righteous in the work of Christ,
The Holy Lamb once sacrificed,
Once, for all, throughout all time.
It is finished. CHORUS
#2 in the Emily Brink hit parade is a collaboration with Ron Rienstra. Ron had written a short song in a bouncy, country style for an event years ago and wondered if I’d revisit it with him. I applied some gospel sauce and it turned into this: PDF, MP3.
And no, I don’t know how it is possible for a professional musician to sing so out of tune…
Update 3/12/22: Sheet music for this song is now available at gregscheer.com.
The grande dame of congregational song, Emily Brink, recently retired. I was asked to provide some music for a book celebrating her career: “One Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church: A Scrapbook of Worship Resources for the Worldwide Church.” Of course, I was happy to add to the collection, and only wish I could have been at her retirement party to celebrate with her and sing some of the songs from the book.
The first song is a setting of Psalm 133 by Michael Morgan for which I wrote a new tune: MP3.
Why the tune name MY IMAGINARY FRIEND, you ask? Well, Maria Poppen told me that her daughter Rebekah has an imaginary friend, and somehow she decided to name her Emily Brink! How cute is that?
Terry Taylor recently asked me to submit a song that would serve as the theme song for next year’s Growing in Grace children’s music ministry curriculum. I’m pleased to say that “Know, Grow, Show” was accepted and will be used throughout the year for all ages of the curriculum. Here’s a demo to whet your appetite. Now head over to their website and order it for your children’s music ministry!
A few days ago, a friend of mine, Wendell Kimbrough, asked about a Nigerian song he had heard. I checked it out and was immediately smitten. It has everything you’d want in an African praise chorus: it’s immediately singable, thematically focused, and it leaves plenty of room for ad lib verses. Oh, and one more trait of African praise choruses: everyone sings it slightly differently. Below are a few versions to give you an idea of the variety of styles.
I decided I needed to commit the song to notation, but that meant I needed to synthesize all the different renditions and make some comprises for Western musicians and notation. First, I bumped the key up to G. No biggy; it just felt more congregation-friendly. Next, I standardized the syncopation–“of the Lord” is always syncopated the same way. This is fairly consistent in all the recordings, so I felt it was the right thing to do. My transcription keeps the spirit of the original rhythm, and also gives newcomers only one rhythm to learn. On the same subject, “from heaven come down” is usually syncopated in the source recordings, but I decided to go with the straightest version of them–no point in giving Western congregations the “right” rhythm which they’ll never get right. Finally, I wrote it in four-part harmony. Since an SATB version doesn’t exist in any of the original performances, I had to create one from what those performances imply.
Consider the above paragraph “truth in advertising.” There are some Western arrangers (some of whom may hail from Scotland) who give the impression that their versions of songs are definitive. I want to document what recordings I was working from and what decisions I made. You are free to make your own arrangement or adapt to your context. That is especially true for an “off the page” song like this. For example, I must say that I really like Wendell’s rendition below. It’s completely different, yet entirely faithful to the original.
If anyone has any background information on the song, I’m all ears.
Update 3/12/22: Sheet music for this song is now available at gregscheer.com.
The last song from my Hallel Psalm cantata, Everlasting to Everlasting, is a setting of Psalm 118 for which the cantata is named. Psalm 118 is also the lectionary Psalm for Easter Sunday, so I decided to use the song at Church of the Servant this year. This is a slow burner–it sneaks up on you rather than grabbing you by the collar and shaking you–but I think it worked rather well. Of course, who can dislike a song that starts with a boy soprano? Thank you, Christian Voetberg for doing the work of winning over the congregation to my new song!
Listen to the MP3.