This is, literally, my musical diary–notes fresh from my pen and recorded in a few hours. You can find my finished works elsewhere; here, it's all about capturing the moment!
I should participate in FAWM and do an Adopt-a-Psalm program every year. Even though there’s a certain amount of stress involved in writing 14 songs in the shortest month, I find that when I have to write it primes my pump to do more writing.
I was driving home tonight when the phrase, “We’ve all got this disease” drifted into my mind. By the time I was in the door, the first four lines were running through my head. Serendipity would have it that I was humming the melody in Eb minor, the darkest of keys. As my fingers searched to find their way in the uncharted territory of this accidental key, many discoveries were made. An hour later, I had recorded this introspective demo.
We’ve all got this disease and sometimes it feels like it’s the only thing growing inside me.
Is any of this real? Is this just a dream– a series of scenes and cycles of feelings?
Update 11/4/21: Sheet music for this song can now be downloaded at gregscheer.com.
As I was working on Psalm 4, one of the commentaries I read mentioned the connection between Psalm 4’s deep peace amid distress and Philippians 4:7 “May the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, keep your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ, our Lord.” I decided this would make a good musical coda to the Psalm.
Update 10/6/20: Sheet music for this song can be downloaded here.
Continuing my Adopt-a-Psalm commission month, I turned my attention to Psalm 12. It’s another difficult Psalm, with abrasive sentiments like, “May the Lord cut off all flattering lips.” Underneath its prickly exterior, though, the Psalm is all about words and how we use them—lies, lips, tongue, boasts, promises—the Psalm is full of “word” words.
Samuel Terrien proposes a chiastic form for the Psalm, with God’s words of verse 5 at the center of the form and the rest of the sections mirroring each other. (So, for example, the power gained by the flattering lips of verse 3 and 4 are answered by God’s sure promises and protection in verse 6 and 7.) That suggested to me that verse 5 would be an appropriate refrain.
Using God’s words as a song refrain is unusual. Normally, a song that uses God’s words has them sung by a leader, while the people sing their response. (Think Dan Schutte’s “Here I Am, Lord.”) But in this song, the verses are sung as a first person prayer and the refrain answers with God’s words. While it’s unorthodox, I like the idea of an individual’s plea for help being answered by a whole group thundering God’s words of assurance.
I was asked by my Psalm adopter to write a song that could be played on guitar. That worked well because I was already hearing a rugged folk style. In my mind was Kiran Young Wimberly’s Celtic Vespers service from this year’s symposium. As I worked on that service, I noticed how the folk melodies served to both tame unruly texts and give a little muscle to the prettier Psalms we’ve heard a million times. So this song has none of the typical “Scheer-isms” you’d expect. It’s just a straight up modal melody and chords.
What’s been interesting to me is how much these more difficult texts have come to mean to me as I work on them. The way humans use words to wield power has never been something I’ve contemplated much. But in this political climate and given some things I’ve been experiencing lately, I found myself praying the text and expressing my own feelings as I wrote and recording the song. I guess that’s what the Psalms are all about, right?
Note: I was having trouble with Logic Pro and my Apogee Duet and found out too late that the digital artifacts I was hearing in my headphones were making their way into the recording. Nonetheless, you are welcome to listen or look (see link above for sheet music).
1. Hear, O Lord, my prayer,
for truth has disappeared;
vanished like a breath or like a sigh.
Here, O Lord, am I,
adrift in floods of lies.
Is honesty extinct from humankind?
I will now arise and the poor will know my might.
I still I hear the needy when they cry.
I will now arise and the poor will know my might.
I, the Lord, have heard the prayer you prayed in groans and sighs.
I, the Lord, have heard the prayer you prayed in groans and sighs.
2. You, O Lord, you know
they benefit by boasts,
flattery, and rumors, and white lies.
You, O Lord, you see:
they gain from their deceit
and misery of those they trap like flies. refrain
3. Speak, O Lord, I’ll hear
the truth your word reveals.
Trusting, though malicious mouths resound.
Your word O Lord, is true.
Your promises are pure;
a refuge when no honesty is found. refrain
Update 11/4/21: Sheet music for this song can now be downloaded at gregscheer.com.
As I study the Psalms I’m setting to music during my Adopt-a-Psalm month, I often find echoes of the Psalms in the New Testament. This shouldn’t come as a surprise; after all, Jesus quoted the Psalms more than any other book of the Old Testament. When I was working on Psalm 3: I Shall Rest in Peace, it seemed that Romans 8:38-39 was Psalm 3’s New Testament twin: For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
I decided to write a song on Romans 8 that could be paired with Psalm 3. It’s just a short chorus that can be sung as a coda to Psalm 3 (same key) or as a stand-alone scripture song. You’ll notice I took quite a bit of liberty with the text. I think it still conveys the spirit of Romans 8, though it doesn’t quote it verbatim.
Neither death nor demon can hold me, or life’s sweetest angels control me, and no pow’r today or to come; highest high or lowest low. For nothing can resist the tireless love of God; And nothing can undo our redemption in Christ’s blood; For nothing can change what our God’s already done.
I’ve had a sketch of this song hanging around for a few weeks now. I think it started with an Evernote dictation that said, “We all want to be loved, but we’re afraid of being known.” (Does it count as texting and driving if you’re writing song lyrics?) I’ve been chewing on this idea that humans have a simultaneous desire for intimacy and fear of the vulnerability it requires. I kept coming back to words like “void,” “abyss,” and “chasm” as metaphors for the emptiness we fear in a life without love. At first, the chorus was going to be, “We’re all holding on, slipping into the void.” But in the end, I decided “sinking like a stone” was the best way to name the bottomless pit from the rock’s point of view.
But the draft lay unfinished until yesterday when someone told me that humans possess three fundamental fears: abandonment, being smothered, and ceasing to exist. With that, I knew the way forward, with a verse addressing each fear.
As noted elsewhere, I find it very effective to pair depressing lyrics with chipper music. Not only does it save the whole thing from self-indulgent pity, but it creates an artistic tension that sneaks up on you. The existential angst suddenly reveals itself while you’re bopping your head to the beat. The harpsichord and accordion seal the deal.
1. We all want to be loved,
but we’re afraid to be alone.
We offer up our souls,
but still it’s not enough.
Our need, it only grows.
We’re terrified
of being left alone
with nothing but this hole:
Sinking like a stone.
2. We all want to be loved,
but we’re afraid of being known.
Naked and exposed,
we’ll always hide ourselves.
So don’t get too close;
the intimacy’s too much.
We’re vulnerable to touch;
it opens wide the soul:
Sinking like a stone.
3. We all want to be loved;
We’re afraid we’ll disappear.
Love, and pain, and fear
are better than nothing at all.
We all feel the void.
We’re all hanging on
For dear life, lest we fall
Into those dark jaws:
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.
I’ve been working on this song forever. A sketch has been in my idea folder for at least a year and multiple recorded fragments reside on my handheld recorder, my phone, and my computer. On a beautiful fall day not long ago, I sat outside in the afternoon sun and completed the lyrics. Since then, I’ve been adding a few tracks at a time until it was full enough that it felt like a finished recording. This is a little different for me: simple music as a frame for the lyrics, with atmospheric instrumentation swirling around in the background.
1. You’re taking the dirt
and the clouds and the rain,
and you’re making it beautiful.
Out of the ground
There sprouts a grain.
And it is beautiful.
Even the fire
and the flood;
Rising from ashes;
New life from mud.
Even from fire and from flood
There comes something beautiful.
You’re making it
Beautiful.
2. All of my doubt,
my fear, and my pain—
can You make them beautiful?
All of the things
I can’t understand—
Will they become beautiful?
You’re taking my failures,
and my scars
and making
a canvas for your art.
The night is dark,
But it’s full of stars.
They are so beautiful.
You’re making it
Beautiful.
3. I burn a bridge,
can you part the seas?
Lord, I need a miracle.
O God, make a way
When I can’t see
How it could be beautiful.
A story of sin
Told in regrets;
A history
Written by mistake…
Will there be hope
When morning breaks?
Will it be beautiful?
You’re taking it,
You’re making…
All things new. All things new again.
All things new. All things new in the end.
For the record, yes, the atmospheric background vocals were a tip of the hat to 10cc’s hit “I’m Not in Love.”
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.
Update 12/11/21: Sheet music for this song is now available at gregscheer.com.
I’ve been asked to write a song for use at the World Communion of Reformed Churches 2017 General Council.
The difficulty of this sort of assignment is that–with intuition rather than information–I have to project what might be needed and what the vibe of the gathering is likely to be. The theme of this global assembly is “Living God Renew and Transform Us.” This is both a prayer for the ongoing work of the Spirit and a tip of the hat to the 500th year anniversary of the Protestant Reformation.
You likely know the phrase “Semper reformanda: Reformed and always reforming” that captures the spirit of the modern Reformed Church. I began my composing with this as a starting point. I liked the way phrases such as, “Reformed and reforming; transformed and transforming; renewed and renewing, forgiven and forgiving” show both what we’ve received through faith and what we, in turn, offer the world. However, in song form, I felt the phrases were quickly turning into a laundry list, a lyrical dead end. (I often refer to this kind of song as a “contest hymn”; they use enough catch phrases to win a contest, but never really catch on in real-life congregations.)
While I like the Medieval music groove and believe it will be immensely singable with the right lyrics, I decided to pull the plug and move on. If you want to take a stab at writing new lyrics, please feel free to visit gregscheer.com to download the free pdf and get to work. Otherwise, stay tuned for WCRC Take 2.
Update 12/11/21: Sheet music for this song is now available at gregscheer.com.
As you know, my dear listeners, I scour the globe for songs that might find a home in your congregation. Sometimes they come from the globe that is my head. Other times they come from far-flung lands on the globe underneath my feet. In the case of this setting of Psalm 121, it hails from Korea.
I learned this song from two Korean friends who were studying at Calvin Seminary. This is the second in a big pile of lovely songs that we sang through a few years back. What I love about these songs is that they are simple, heartfelt, and based on scripture. It fits well with a Korean spirituality that is so full of prayer and devotion. The song is by Seong Sil Chung. (If you know him, please introduce me!) I translated the text using the videos below, notes from friends, and Psalm 121 itself. There are two arrangements: the first is a piano accompaniment with guitar chords (capo 4), the second is a simple four part arrangement like you’d find in hymnals.
Samuel Terrien proposes a chiastic form for the Psalm, with God’s words of verse 5 at the center of the form and the rest of the sections mirroring each other. (So, for example, the power gained by the flattering lips of verse 3 and 4 are answered by God’s sure promises and protection in verse 6 and 7.) That suggested to me that verse 5 would be an appropriate refrain.
1. We all want to be loved,
1. Ever-tender Shepherd,