When I was in Uganda I was doodling on the guitar one day and I came up with a cool little guitar riff. Somehow it seemed to match up in my mind with the hymn text “There’s a Wideness in God’s Mercy.” Like all promising musical ideas that come to me, it kept playing in my head and I kept fussing with it on paper. But then it just got too fussy. I was over thinking it until all its charm was gone. So I decided to take a break from looking at it on paper and just get back to how the started–with me doodling on guitar. Over the last few days I’ve just been playing with it and now I feel like it’s once again becoming that simple, charming song that I met in Uganda. Here’s me playing it straight into the mic on my MacBook Pro: There’s a Wideness in God’s Mercy MP3.
Category: Congregational Songs
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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.”
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The King Shall Come
Last week at gregscheer.com I introduced the Advent song “The King Shall Come.” Actually, it was a reintroduction, as the song has been available at my site for a few years, but I recently made substantial changes to the lyrics (what we call improvements in the business) and wrote a piano accompaniment. Of course, the whole thing is based on a hymn by John Brownlie written in 1907, making it a re-reintroduction. (And Brownlie is said to have based it on a Greek Orthodox hymn, which would make it a re-re-reintroduction, but I digress…)
Hurry! There are only two more weeks in Advent to enjoy The King Shall Come.
Due to popular demand (okay–one request) I just wrote a piano accompaniment for my Christmas song “A Great and Mighty Wonder.” I also took the opportunity to update the text a little and write out a descant. The descant is kind of cool in a musically geeky sort of way–it uses the refrain of “O come All You Faithful” as counterpoint to this song’s refrain. (Do I smell a Christmas medley?) You can hear a demo MP3 here or download the lead sheet and piano score at my main site.
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Abba Father
Calvin College’s chaplain Andy De Jong is doing a chapel series on the Lord’s Prayer. He asked if I would compose a new tune for a text by Thomas Troeger called “Let All Who Pray the Prayer Christ Taught.” It turned out to be quite a challenge. It’s quite a thick text which doesn’t lend itself naturally to the meditative spirit you’d expect from a song about praying. So I put Troeger’s text in the mouth of the leader and gave the congregation a simple “Abba, Father” as a response. Here’s the demo. I hope you like it. More importantly, I hope that Thomas likes it, because I’ll be working with him next summer at Lake Junaluska. I can just imagine our first meeting: “Greg Scheer. (silence) So you’re the guy who ruined my song.”
Update: For sheet music or to adopt this orphan tune, head over to gregscheer.com.
This Sunday at Church of the Servant we sang the Psalter Hymnal version of Psalm 82, “There Where the Judges Gather.” After the service Ron and Deb Rienstra commented that the tune which accompanied the text was too nice. What it really needed was a tune that got across the “stick it to the man” tone of the Psalm.
How could I resist?
I spent the next few days writing and recording this new version of “There Where the Judges Gather.” The tune, appropriately enough, is called “STICK IT TO THE MAN.” Do punk rock and metrical Psalms go together? You be the judge. Listen to the MP3 here.
Update 10/1/20: Sheet music for this song can be downloaded here.
We sang the new setting of Psalm 30 this Sunday at COS and it went surprisingly well for a new congregational tune. People picked it up quickly and gained momentum each verse. Listen to the recording from the 11am service or download the final version of the PDF file (see link above).
One person remarked that he wouldn’t have known that it was a Psalm if it hadn’t said so in the liturgy. I didn’t know if he meant that as a good thing or a bad thing. Jack, COS’s pastor thought the words were great. He thought he was paying me a compliment until he realized I had only written the music. My wife Amy pronounced the song “okay.”
Even in the face of such ambivalent reactions, I remain undaunted! My calling in life is to fill up the world with so-so music, and I intend to do it with gusto!
Update 10/1/20: Sheet music for this song can be downloaded here.
Once again, I’ve turned to Michael Morgan’s 1999 Psalter for Christian Worship as the starting point for a new Psalm setting, this time Psalm 30. I like the way Morgan places the joyous sentiments of the Psalm text in the first half of each verse, and the lament and supplication in the second half. That allows the musical setting to reinforce the meaning of the text in each verse.
Morgan recommends the tune ABBOTS LEIGH (“God Is Here”) for the text. That’s a beautiful tune, but I just couldn’t leave well enough alone. I wrote a draft of a new tune one afternoon last week, obsessed about it the rest of the evening, revised it the next morning, got some helpful feedback from my friend David that afternoon, then finished it by dinner time.
We’ll sing it at COS as the lectionary Psalm this Sunday. In the meantime, you can download a PDF file of the music (see link above) or listen to a cheesy Finalefied MP3.