The Musical Diary of Greg ScheerIf you missed Western Seminary’s performance of my “Prayer of Jonah,” just click below. The song starts at 20:57, but the whole service is well worth watching.
Oh, if you happen to be looking for a scripture song accompanied by 5 electric basses (and really, who isn’t?) just contact me for the music.
This spring, I had the great good fortune to compose a new piece for the Calvin Community Symphony’s 25th-anniversary concert. Below are the program notes:
It may seem obvious—even unimaginative—to name a piece commissioned for a 25th anniversary concert “25.” What is perhaps less obvious is that the composition is in a 25/8 meter*.
One 8th note per year is not only a fitting starting place for a 25th anniversary piece, but it continues my long term exploration of rhythm. My compositions often draw on the rhythmic vitality of African, Celtic, Pop, and Minimalist music. In “25” you can hear the uneven rhythms of Eastern Europe folk music, Medieval dances, or even the Genevan Psalter.
If you listen carefully, you will also hear echoes of Ravel’s “Boléro.” Instead of Ravel’s famous snare drum rhythm, “25” begins with brushed snare, immediately announcing its connection to dance rhythms of our day, especially jazz. On top of the brushed snare, a series of solo instruments enter one at a time—flute, clarinet, etc—the beginning of a wedge that grows in volume, intensity, and range throughout the whole composition. Speaking of intensity, the piannisimo brushed snare rhythm morphs and grows throughout the piece, making a brash recapitulation at the drum set near the end.
Heartfelt thanks are due Maestro Varineau and the musicians of the Calvin Community Symphony for the love they’ve shown this new composition. Thank you for making me part of your 25th anniversary!
—Greg Scheer
*Technically, the piece is in a consistent four-measure pattern: 6/8+7/8+6/8+3/4. I’m nerdy enough to take on the challenge of composing in an odd meter, but not stupid enough to make the musicians read a 25/8 time signature!
This Sunday (4/28/19) was the premiere of “Psalm 84: Blessed Beyond Measure” at Trinity Lutheran Church in Owatonna, MN. The piece was commissioned for their 100th-year celebration service, which was held in a local arena. It was so beautiful to see 125 singers and instrumentalists of all stripes performing together.
Here is a link to the Facebook video: https://www.facebook.com/tlcowatonna/videos/405895356658711/?t=2430
And here is the song’s original post where you can find a leadsheet and some background: https://musicblog.gregscheer.com/2019/03/22/psalm-84-blessed-beyond-measure/
Below is the first page of the full score. If you want to peruse the score or get the organ/piano accompaniment, just email me.
Update 1/10/22: Sheet music for this song is now available at gregscheer.com.
For this latest collaboration with TL Moody, I took a different tack. I often match her texts with folk songs. The organic nature of the subject matter often feels like it should be matched by the string and wood of traditional folk music. And the reference to the lark in the first lines of the hymn almost lured me to follow Ralph Vaughan Williams ethereal “The Lark Ascending.” But I didn’t follow either of those muses.
Instead, I took my cues from the chorus, which is about joy welling up in the soul in praise of the Creator. What emerged was a Renaissance-style hymn with a persistent pulse underneath.
Bonus? You get to hear a chorus of Greg trombones!
Update: 1/10/22: Sheet music for this song is now available at gregscheer.com.
The collaborations with TL Moody continue!
What I love about this song, “The Meadow Sings,” is that the text wraps nature and doxology together so tightly and beautifully. Many environmental hymns are so heavy-handed they make you want to hop in your SUV and go eat a burger just to spite the starry-eyed, idealistic poet. But this text knits together nature, music, and the Creator so beautifully it makes all three seem part of the same chorus.
The organic nature of the text led me to compose a folk song with Celtic overtones. Of course, we’re all trying to recapture the beauty of “Be Thou My Vision” and “Morning Has Broken.” On the other hand, you could do worse…
I’m currently working on a big choral commission for the centennial celebration of Trinity Lutheran Church in Owatonna, MN. (“Big” as in, youth and adult choirs, handbells and handchimes, woodwinds, brass, strings, timpani, harp, and praise team.)
While it is relatively easy to write a festive choral piece that would add to a centennial celebration day, it’s a lot harder to write something that will continue to be used by the church for years to come. With that in mind, I wanted to do a reality check, creating a demo that would strip back all the instrumentation to reveal how well the song itself sings. I’m glad I did because the very act of recording the song showed me places I should leave space for breathing, words that tripped the tongue, and parts of the melody that could be streamlined. What remains is smooth as butter.
My study of Psalm 84 revealed a Psalm full of wide-eyed wonder about God’s temple, but also trust in God’s presence on the journey of life. Most commentators break the Psalm into three sections: 1. The beauty of God’s temple. 2. The blessing of the journey (to the temple and the journey of life). 3. God’s presence in the heart and life of the faithful. What a beautiful theme for a church that has journeyed for 100 years and is looking to its future! I followed this same three-part structure in my song.
The song is what I often call a “blender.” That is, a song that can live comfortably in both traditional and contemporary settings: think “In Christ Alone,” “There Is a Redeemer,” etc. This demo leans toward the contemporary with guitars and drums, but the full arrangement (to be completed any day now) leans more traditional, as it will be premiered in a large hall with lots of reverb. Ultimately, I think it will be right at home in both Trinity’s weekly traditional or contemporary services.
Update 1/10/22: Sheet music for this song is now available at gregscheer.com.
My second collaboration with TL Moody is a tune for her text “Speak Sabbath O’er My Soul.” What I love about this text is that positions Sabbath as something life-giving that God does for us rather than a teeth-gritting discipline we do for God.
I went with a serene, stately setting of the text, which I think creates quite a lovely, mystical mood. The piano provides a steady pulse, and the vocals feel like inhaling and exhaling on top of that. (Yes, there are echoes of Sibelius’ “Be Still My Soul.”)
Fortuitously, the day I wrote this was also choir rehearsal day at Fuller Ave CRC. My choir didn’t know they were showing up for a recording session!
The first performance of “Prayer of Jonah” took place in December at Western Seminary. The song begins at 27:54 in this video, but the whole enactment of the book of Jonah is well worth watching. The next performance will be at the Calvin Worship Symposium during the Thursday and Friday Vesper services, 4:15pm in Gezon Auditorium.
collaborator extraordinaire and completely unaware
My third collaboration with Christopher Webber is a new tune for his social justice hymn, “Is It I, Lord?” The meter of the text is 8.5.5.5 D, which is very unusual. (Unusual, as in “I don’t think it exists anywhere else in the world. Ever.”) It was quite challenging to compose a tune that matched this unusual meter and fit each verse of the tune. But every musical challenge has a solution!
Christopher and I work together remarkably well. Our collaboration is so seamless that we barely need words. I’m joking, of course. I’ve never met the man. Maybe someday I will and he’ll either hug me or punch me.
I have a piano score for this song and would be glad to email it to you if you ask nicely. I will let you know when all these songs are released by World Library Publications.
It’s been a good season for commissions, with hymns, choral anthems, and orchestral compositions waiting to be written. But first, this setting of the biblical Song of Jonah. You’ll remember that Jonah was a runaway prophet who was swallowed by a big fish sent from God. You may not remember that once Jonah was firmly lodged inside this enormous fish’s gut, he began praying to God (in song form).
Every year, Western Seminary students perform a scriptural drama in the original Hebrew as the culmination of their language studies. This year, retiring Hebrew professor Tom Boogaart and professor of worship/chapel Ron Rienstra decided to try something different: The Book of Jonah in a new English translation and with a new musical rendition of the Prayer of Jonah, composed by yours truly.
As I began to work on the song, I was struck by the water imagery that echoes Genesis 1 and Psalms 29, 42, 69, and 130. What better way to express this “out of the depths” prayer than the thundering tones of the bass? And thus the project morphed into a song with an accompaniment of five electric basses. (Yes, that is off-the-hook awesome.)
Musically, the song uses a good deal of word painting. The first phrase, “out of the depths,” is a pentatonic melody that quickly swells from lowest range of the voice to more than an octave up. I love the way this gives a musical sense of the depths, the waves, and the turbulence of Jonah’s situation. The pre-chorus (“Baptized into the cold water”) is “adrift” melodically, with a B in the melody floating on top of the Am chord, and the heavy downbeat F# crashing against the Em chord. At the chorus, there’s a sudden lift to E major. It really feels like a ray of sunlight, doesn’t it? More word painting ensues, with “You have raised me up” leaping up and “from the pit” sinking down.
You can check out the full song (MP3, PDF), or listen to a few interludes that will be used as scene change music:
1. Harmonics
2. Chorus
3. Ascension
4. Chaos
1. Out of the depths of my deep distress
I cried to you, my Lord.
Swallowed up whole in the belly of death,
yet still you heard my voice.
Baptized into the cold water,
into the heart of the sea.
The deep was surging, surrounding;
wave after wave drowning me.
You have raised me up, O Lord,
from the pit I’d sunken in.
Gasping for my final breath,
you breathed me to life again.
2. I was resolved to a watery grave
as the waves rose to my neck.
Eyelids closed to the undertow,
garland of seaweed around my head.
My final thought while descending
into the cold arms of death
was of your glorious temple.
Then I slipped into the abyss. [CHORUS]
3. Out of the depths of my deep distress
I remembered you, my God.
From the abyss my prayer was heard
at your holy temple, Lord.
Some waste their prayers on deaf idols.
Some run when hearing God’s call.
I raise a voice of thanksgiving
unto the Lord, God of all. [CHORUS]