Category: Congregational Songs

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Arrangement Church Congregational Songs Live Retuned hymn

Peace, Perfect Peace

Update 10/6/20: Sheet music for my arrangement of this song can be downloaded here.

This is one of my favorite hymns. Ever. I found it in the old maroon Presbyterian Hymnbook in my first church position back in Pittsburgh, but have only had the opportunity to use it a few times over the last 20 years.

We sang it a few months ago at COS when Jack preached the “blessed are the peacemakers” part of the Sermon on the Mount, and it is sadly relevant again this weekend in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook shootings.

Read more about the hymn at Hymnary or listen to the MP3: Peace, Perfect Peace

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Church Congregational Songs

The Body of Christ @ Cardiphonia

As promised, my song “The Body of Christ” was released today on the Cardiphonia compilation, Songs for Liturgy. Besides my song, there are 26 other songs that will rock your liturgical world. Really. Go download the whole album. You’ll be doing yourself a favor, treating your ears to all that sweet music. You’ll be doing your congregation a favor by finding fresh new songs for your church’s services. And you’ll be doing flood victims in NY/NJ a favor, as all proceeds go to them. What are you waiting for?

Once you’re done downloading the album, come on back and print the music.

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Church Congregational Songs Demos

Open Our Eyes to the Word of Life

Bruce Benedict and Cardiphonia crew are releasing another compilation. This time the theme is liturgical music. I’ll post a link to my song, “The Body of Christ” that will be included on the CD when it’s released in a few days. In the meantime, here is a brand new one that didn’t make the cut: Open Our Eyes to the Word of Life.

It’s a prayer for illumination to be sung before the reading or preaching of scripture. Even though it’s a compact little song, the lyrics include each person of the Trinity and conclude with the idea that we should not only be hearing the Word, we should be doing it, as well. Not bad for 18 measures. The first part of the song can be sung as a round, a cappella or using the chords in measures 21-24. But the likelihood of people singing a new song as a round is low, so I added a “Hallelujah” round after the main text. This can be sung directly following the first part of the song, as it is on the demo, or it can be separated and sung elsewhere in the service.

Give it a try: MP3, PDF

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Arrangement Church Congregational Songs Finale demo

O Bless the Lord, My Soul (ST THOMAS)

Update 12/11/21: Sheet music for this song is now available at gregscheer.com.

I don’t know how I forgot to post this earlier, but a few weeks ago I finished a string orchestra arrangement of the hymn tune ST THOMAS, using the text “O Bless the Lord, My Soul.” These hymn tune arrangements give me the opportunity to squeeze as much counterpoint and harmonic variation as I can from an 8 measure tune. It’s both challenging and satisfying, and I was quite happy with how this turned out.

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Arrangement Church Congregational Songs Live

God Is So Good

Update 10/2/20: Sheet music for this song can be downloaded here.

Here’s a little something I arranged for the October 7 BES Combo service at COS.

Everyone knows “God Is So Good” and everyone hears it in a Black Gospel style (don’t they?), but hymnals only have a boring four-part version. I took it upon myself to right this wrong. Opinions varied on the worship team whether this was just right or so wrong (it’s a fine line). I’ll probably do another draft in the near future, so contact me if you’re thinking of using it; I’ll get you the latest version.

God Is So Good: MP3, (see link above for PDF)

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Choir Church Congregational Songs Live Psalms

Bless the Lord: Live at COS

“So how did it sound?” You ask.

I posted a rehearsal MP3 for my choir last week, and now you’re probably dying to know how it went on Sunday. Well, maybe not dying, but at least a tad curious. Die no more, my friends. Here’s how it sounded: Bless the Lord, O My Soul! (Psalm 103)

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Choir Church Congregational Songs Finale demo

Bless the Lord, O My Soul – rehearsal version

I just got out of choir rehearsal. The singers were real troopers, learning Liszt’s “Pater Noster” and my new setting of Psalm 103 in one rehearsal. But even troopers can you use some back up sometimes, so I’m posting an MP3 of the Finale playback of the piece so they can practice between now and Sunday. Here it is folks: MP3.

By the way, you’ll hear some strange stuff at the end of the MP3. I’m pretty sure that Finale’s “human playback” is programmed with the principle that to err is human. Therefore, it inserts random errors in the file. Thanks Finale…

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Arrangement Choir Church Congregational Songs Demos Finale demo

One Generation, orchestra demo

Today’s post swerves from the musical valley of last week’s deacon dance ditty into the higher ground of a majestic orchestral arrangement. Aesthetic whiplash? You betcha.

One Generation is one of my big hits. “Big,” “hit,” and perhaps even “one of” are relative, of course, but it has been published a few times and even sung at weddings, so I count it as my “Freebird.” In any case, there are a few events coming up where they plan to sing One Generation and have large ensembles on hand, so I thought it was time to orchestrate it. I wanted to dress it up so that it felt more majestic than the everyday praise song, so I added a fanfare and splashes of color throughout. Also, knowing that most people won’t have full orchestra, I created multiple options (choir/piano, congregation/strings/piano, etc).

Here’s a rough demo as performed by Finn Alley: MP3. If you want the score and parts, just let me know.

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Church Congregational Songs Contests

Lord, Now Let Your Servants – piano

I was really pleased to find out that one of my songs has been chosen to be included in the Gospel Coalition’s Songs for the Book of Luke project. It’s a big honor.

They’ll create their own arrangement for the recording, but I didn’t want the rest of you to be left out. Here is a piano accompaniment for the song, with SATB vocal parts on the chorus: PDF, MP3.

If you want just a lead sheet, you can visit the original post.

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Arrangement Church Congregational Songs

God Himself Is with Us, violin descant

Update 12/11/21: Sheet music for this song is now available at gregscheer.com.

Just a quick post to show how mean I am. When I found out I had two really fine violinists lined up for our Sunday services a few weeks ago, I decided to give them a little challenge. I wrote a descant for the hymn “God Himself Is with Us” so that they could provided counterpoint to the congregation’s a cappella singing on the last verse. It turns out they had to *practice*, which made me feel really bad when I found out about it later…

Eventually, I’ll turn this into a full-fledged orchestral arrangement–perhaps a theme and variations with violin solo. For now, listen to how it sounded in worship: MP3.