Category: Church

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Church

Toads in Tiaras

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.All Earth Is Waiting, refrain

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Choir Church

My Soul Will Magnify the Lord

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.

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Church Demos

At the Cross (I Know a Place)

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.

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Church Finale demo

ALLITERATION: a new hymn tune in 8787D

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!

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Church

GESCHICHTE: Sufferings of Jesus

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

My friend David Landegent has written many hymn texts, most recently concentrating on scripture-based texts. One of his recent texts, “Sufferings of Jesus” is based on 2 Cor. 1:3-11. He wrote it with the tune ASSURANCE (Blessed Assurance) in mind, but I felt that tune was too sprightly to encompass the themes of suffering and consolation found in his text. And you know what Greg does when he thinks a tune is too this or that for a given text, right? He composes a new one. Here’s an MP3 of the new tune, appropriately–if obscurely–named GESCHICHTE.

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Church Production music

Hymnary Theme Music

I’ve been working on the Hymnary.org for a few years now, and I decided it was about time that it had some theme music. Since it’s a database of all kinds of congregational songs, I thought it would be appropriate to compose a brisk and whimsical romp through hymnological history. Take a listen to the Church of the Servant choir and me singing The Hymnary Theme Music.

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Choir Church Psalms

Psalm 118: This Is the Day!

Yesterday was Easter, and we had a blow out celebration of Christ’s resurrection at Church of the Servant. The service included my new setting of Psalm 118, the day’s lectionary Psalm. Okay, I went a little overboard with this one. It’s more than 7 minutes, includes parts for soprano solo, strings, brass and timpani, and the full score is 40 pages long. And it’s hard. But it was Easter, so a little extravagance seemed entirely appropriate. Listen to the COS choir and strings performing it with Melissa Simon on soprano and Brandan Grinwis on timpani: MP3.

Just cant get enough? Check out the “bouncing ball” version of the score:

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Church Finale demo

Before the Cross

One of my favorite hymn tunes is O WALY WALY (often associated with the song “The Water Is Wide”) and one of my favorite hymn texts is “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross.” I often put them together, to the annoyance of those in the pews, but this Lent I decided to do something a little different. I paired Marie J. Post’s text “As Moses Raise the Serpent Up” with the tune O WALY WALY and put it in a medley with “When I Survey” paired with HAMBURG. Then I added a new refrain to wrap it all together into a meaty Lenten sandwich. Listen to the sinfully cheesy demo, or download a side of music score.

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Church Contests Psalms

People of the Lord

“People of the Lord” began it’s life in spring of 2006 when the CRCNA issued a call for songs to usher in its Sesquicentennial celebrations. I wrote a song for each of the three Psalms that shaped that event: “One Generation” (Psalm 145) got an honorable mention in that contest, and was recently included in Faith Alive’s Contemporary Songs for Worship. “Deeper than the Sea” (Psalm 36) was also included in Contemporary Songs for Worship and has recently been released as a choral anthem by GIA on their LeavenSong series (G-7309). “People of the Lord” (Psalm 78) was the runt of the litter.  It’s easy to understand why it didn’t attract much attention: who wants to sing a Genevan-style metrical Psalm in 7/8 meter?

A year later a few friends tipped me off to a song contest that was being held by the Calvin09 organization. They were looking for a song fitting for Calvin’s 500th birthday. It needed to be something with a connection to Calvin’s worship practice that could be sung by modern reformed churches all over the world. I decided to dust off “People of the Lord” and give it one more chance. This time I added a keyboard accompaniment that gave a stronger backbone to the 7/8 rhythm.

I was shocked when I received an email telling me it had won the contest, and I continue to be amazed at the way the song is traveling throughout the world. It has been translated into a half dozen languages. I got an email from Argentina saying “This, we can sing!” A Dutch blogger has translated and promoted the hymn. It will be included in the worship journal of the Church of Scotland. I recently met a woman from Germany who told me her church had sung the song a week before, while a German man emailed some new musical settings of the text he had composed. This is the last song I would have expected to be my “big hit.”

Even though a hymn in 7/8 meter seems a bit esoteric, it is actually quite easy to sing. The rhythm remains consistent throughout, and the echo can be used as a way to teach the song quickly. The song can effectively be sung a cappella accompanied by light percussion (hand drum, tambourine, triangle) or with the keyboard accompaniment. I would jump at the opportunity to arrange it for woodwind quintet.

One of the things I worked the longest on was deciding what to call the hymn’s tune, and one of the things that didn’t occur to me at all until someone pointed it out is that I had just written a setting of Psalm 78 in 7/8 time. But that’s typical of life when you’re a composer–things take on a mysterious life of their own once they leave your pen.

Download the PDF of the song, check out the new organ-friendly version, listen to a recording of the COS choir singing it, or peruse a number of translations here.

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Church Demos Retuned hymn

Jesus Calls

Jack Roeda is preaching on the calling of  Samuel (1 Samuel 3:1-10), Philip, and Nathanael (John 1:43-51) next week. As I was searching for songs to fit the theme, I came across the hymn “Jesus Calls O’er the Tumult” in the Hymnary. I liked the text, but wasn’t convinced by the tune that accompanied it in the Psalter Hymnal. So I wrote a new one and took the opportunity to learn more about Logic Studio by recording a demo of it. Here it is: Greg, the band of Greg, and the Greg choir performing “Jesus Calls.”