The Musical Diary of Greg ScheerI was reading Bruce Benedict’s very excellent Cardophonia blog today, and he had a post with four different musical renditions of Isaac Watt’s text “Alas! And Did My Savior Bleed.” That reminded me that I have never uploaded my choral version of that text, which uses the tune MARTYRDOM. Just in time for Holy Week, here’s the PDF and MP3.
Update 10/6/20: Sheet music for this song can be downloaded here.
Tonight at COS we’re throwing a big Lent party we call Ash Wednesday. (Not really, it’s just Ash Wednesday service.) As I chose music for the end of the service, I wanted to find music that was somewhat unobtrusive so that people could focus on the ashes and silent reflection. The song that came to mind is my setting of Psalm 40, “Patiently.” It’s one I’ve never used in a service before because it’s so long. But for music to accompany reflection its lengthy dialogue of verses and refrain fits perfectly. So come to the service tonight to hear it in context. To prepare your heart, sit at the piano with the music (see link above) or listen to the MP3.
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
Its poisoned at the root.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
One of my favorite praise songs is “At the Cross” by Randy and Terry Butler. It’s simple, singable and has meaningful lyrics. But, like many praise songs I’ve never been convinced by the piano arrangements that appear with it in hymnals. Since my church relies so heavily on the piano for accompaniment, I decided to write a new piano accompaniment for the song. Take a listen to the robotic, Finalified MP3 of the arrangement.
Update: Sheet music for this tune (still waiting for a text to call its own)
is now available at gregscheer.com.
Hymn tunes are funny things. They are compact little musical expositions that are given a few dozen measures to introduce and develop a theme. But more than that they are to be sung. A hymn tune may be musical genius in miniature, but if a congregation can’t sing it, it has missed its mark. I wrote the tune ALLITERATION as an alternative to RUSTINGTON. It gave me a chance to work out a few musical ideas, and now it’s your chance to pair it with an 8787D text and give it a try in a real life setting. Listen to the MP3, download and print the PDF (at the link above), and then write a text to go with it!