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Arrangement Art Music Choir Church Commissions Congregational Songs Live

What Adam’s Disobedience Cost

The second piece I was asked to arrange for Calvin College’s 2016 Lessons and Carols service was “What Adam’s Disobedience Cost.” This hymn text by Fred Pratt Green (V5 Carol Bechtel) is not all that well known, but it fills an important niche in the church year, matching the reading about the fall of humanity in Genesis 3.

It is also a wonderful tune, DETROIT, which I fist learned from the amazing early American hymnal The Southern Harmony, 1835. Part of the difficulty with arranging this tune is that I had already arranged it once before in a very different context. In the end, I was able to conjure up an entirely different approach which fit the choir, organ, and reverberant LaGrave sanctuary well.

You can see the whole program here or email me to see the score.

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Arrangement Choir Church Commissions Congregational Songs Live

Jacob’s Ladder Gloria

This Christmas I had the honor of contributing to Calvin College’s Lessons and Carols service. They commissioned two pieces. The first was a musical collage paired with the scripture about Jacob’s dream of a ladder to heaven. I was asked to set the Negro Spiritual “Jacob’s Ladder” with numerous Glorias: Taizé’s, “Angels We Have Heard on High,” and Pablo Sosa’s. For three choirs and organ. That was not enough of a challenge, so I threw in the verse about Jacob’s ladder from “Nearer My God to Thee.”

You can see the whole program here or email me to see the score.

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Church Commissions Congregational Songs Demos

Ever-Tender Shepherd

Update 11/4/21: Sheet music for this song can now be downloaded at gregscheer.com.

A few months ago, I was asked to compose a theme song for the World Communion of Reformed Churches’ 2017 General Council meeting in Leipzig, Germany. After three tries I got it right. One of the out-takes from that process was a hymn tune in a distinctly Bach style. I was really pleased to hear from the event organizers that they not only liked the song I submitted, but they liked the Bach-style hymn, as well. They asked if I’d be willing to write a new text for that tune; a text focusing on the suffering of the world.

After a week of drafting, crumpling, re-drafting, and editing, I’m done. “Ever-Tender Shepherd” is a musical “collect prayer”–a prayer which petitions God based on God’s attributes. In this case, attributes of Jesus are connected to the needs of the world. We ask Christ, the Shepherd, to gather scattered refugees, for example. This seemed a good way to address the needs of the world without taking sides or naming issues so specifically that the song would be obsolete by the time it was used. I’m especially fond of the third verse. But who am I to play favorites?

1. Ever-tender Shepherd,
hear your people’s moans
as they sift through rubble
that was once their homes.

See your children scatter
as cities burn to ash.
Be for them a refuge;
Be for them a rest.

2. Ever-blessing Brother,
grant again your peace.
Breathe on us your Spirit,
that our wars may cease.

Stanch the endless bleeding
of self-inflicted wounds.
May your blood be healing
and your cross our truce.

3. Ever-wounded Healer,
feel your planet’s pain.
Fever wracks its body;
poison fills its veins.

Hear creation’s groaning,
its sighs too deep for words.
Be the re-creation
of all things on earth.

4. Ever-reigning Victor,
ever-loving Lord,
ever intercede for
us, your weak and poor.

May we ever follow
your perfect sacrifice,
offering lives of mercy,
ever-living Christ.

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Church Commissions Congregational Songs Contests Demos Production music

WCRC Take 3: Renew Us, O God!

Update 10/28/21: Sheet music for this song can now be purchased at gregscheer.com.

In a Goldilocks’ moment, my third and final porridge…er, song…is just right. This time, my theme song for the World Communion of Reformed Churches 2017 General Council brings together the best of my earlier drafts.

My first attempt was too “slogan-y”. This version takes that slogan’s idea (“transformed and transforming; renewed and renewing”) and puts it in prayer form: “Renew us, O God.” This prayer serves as a refrain that can be sung joyfully, as on the recording, or introspectively, like a Taizé chorus.

My second attempt had a solid text, but stolid music. (Okay, “stolid” is probably too strong of a word–but it wasn’t festive enough for the occasion.) This third one recycles that same text, but matches it with more vibrant music. It is a lively 6/8 melody that could be accompanied in a variety of styles: hymn-like with organ accompaniment, in a liturgical folk style with piano, or with guitar and even full praise band.

I knew I was onto something when the song continued to come back to me throughout the week. It’s highly singable, but has enough Scheer™ twists and turns to keep it interesting. The first four chords, for example, are pretty far off the beaten track. The D (I) chord moves to an F#m (iii) chord, which should head to a Bm (vi), G (V), or even A (V). Instead, it goes to an Am (minor v), a surprising shift that doesn’t go off the rails because of the stable melody.

But enough harmonic geekery. Take a listen to the recording above.

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Colin Commissions

Dreamin’ (Jaye D Marie)

Colin Gordon-Farleigh and I have written dozens of songs together, and now some of them are beginning to travel. Case in point: Canadian singer Jaye D Marie has included our song “Dreamin” on her latest release.