Category: Demos

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Church Congregational Songs Demos Hymn tunes Jazz Psalms

Foothold (Psalm 25)

Update 10/2/20: Sheet music for this song is available here.

10 years ago, my friend Debra Rienstra wrote a hymn text based on Psalm 25, called “Foothold.” Not only that, she won the Fuller Seminary School of Psychology Fortieth Anniversary hymn competition with it. As I began to work on an upcoming service in which she, her bass/guitar playing husband Ron, and her jazz sax improvising son Philip would be playing, that song came to mind.

But I wasn’t wild about the KINGSFOLD tune that the text had been paired with. Don’t get me wrong–KINGSFOLD is a great tune. But it is overused: “O Sing a Song of Bethlehem,” “I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say,” “I Sing the Mighty Power of God.” The list goes on and on. More importantly, the tune seemed like the wrong vessel for this text. It moved too quickly to allow the deep inner life of Deb’s text to emerge.

So I, being the incessant musical tinkerer that I am, set about to compose a tune that would do the text justice while also allowing Philip to unleash his inner Coltrane. I’m always nervous about changing the music a poet originally heard in her ear, but in this case the poet gave me permission to share, so I must not be too far off base.

Want to play it at the piano rather than listening to Greg croon? See the link above for the PDF.

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Church Congregational Songs Demos Psalms

Psalm 104, with Doug Gay

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

Every few months my friend Doug Gay emails new hymn texts he’s written, many of them Psalm settings. The latest was a setting of Psalm 104. He wrote the text with the 10.10.11.11 tune LYONS in mind (“O Worship the King”). It Destruction_of_Leviathanscans well to this tune and the tune brings out the regal side of the lyrics, but the more I worked with the text, the more I realized they needed a foil that would lighten them rather than heighten their majesty. And since Doug is Scottish, what could be better than an airy Celtic tune?

I wrote the tune the day before a songwriting workshop in which I was slated to present one of my songs. I decided to throw caution to the wind and introduce this brand new song to that audience. It went very well except for the fact that I had made significant tweaks to the melody that morning and was having trouble singing the my finalized melody. But today I have a few hours to record a demo, making sure I got the melody right. Take a listen and tell me: do John Bell and Keith Getty really have a corner on the market of Celtic hymns?

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Demos Rock and/or Roll

Hammer on Wood

This song started as a seed of an idea about 4:30 this afternoon. Just the first two lines. Seven hours later the writing, recording, and mixing are done. There’s something about working quickly that releases you from the fear of perfection and the danger of over-thinking. Right now I’m digging the loose “Inside Me Wants Out” vibe. (Andy Pratt) We’ll see if I still feel that way tomorrow morning.

Stop checking your phone.
No one’s gonna call anymore.
You know you’re alone
when no one answers when you’re talking to yourself.

But what would you say?
You got what you deserve anyway.
You got what you gave:
an empty heart and an early bed (or early grave).

You took what you could;
packed your memories–some of them good.
Like hammer on wood it’s ringing
true and loud and hollow.

Stop checking your mail;
that endless binary sea but nobody’s there.
You pull in your sails.
You drift away, just drift away,

just close your eyes,
just close your eyes. This is your life.
Is this your life?
Or has it all been dreaming?

Have I been awake?
Or have I been sleeping?
Awake, asleep:
Always dreaming.

Stop checking your phone.
No one’s gonna call anymore.
You know you’re alone.
You know you’re alone.

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Church Congregational Songs Demos Retuned hymn

Why Should the Children of a King

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

This is how it works for me: It’s afternoon and the pastor stops by my office to let me know he’s going to skip out on the evening worship committee meeting. “No problem,” I tell him, “I’ll let you know if anything comes up you need to know about.” About an hour before the meeting I realize said pastor is scheduled to lead devotions. Dag! I guess I have to do it. I think, “Well, it’s Pentecost. I’ll just lead a Pentecost song.” I look through my Pentecost ideas folder to see if there’s anything I want to introduce. My eyes fall on a text by Isaac Watts about the work of the Holy Spirit bearing witness to salvation. “Hmmm…” I think. “I’ve always wanted to write a tune for that.” I run (literally) to the piano and get to work. By 7:02pm I have an admittedly half-baked version of the song which I sing with the worship committee. The next day I roll it around in my head until I figure out what the song wants to be when it grows up. The next day I sit down at the piano and finalize the song. But can I let it rest? No, I cannot. So instead of going home, I surround myself with bass drums, guitars, and tambourines and fire up Logic Pro to capture the moment. The moment is above. If you want to make your own moment, head over to gregscheer.com to download the leadsheet.

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Church Congregational Songs Demos Retuned hymn

All Hail, funky retune

Imagine Earth, Wind & Fire (rest in peace, Maurice White) retired from touring and set up residence in a local church. Now imagine that in a dusty hymnal on the shelves of that church they came across the hymn All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name, but decided it needed new music to fit their sound.

earth_wind_fireThat’s pretty much what this version of “All Hail” aspires to be.

Now, this two-bit demo doesn’t do much to help you imagine what I’m hearing in my head, but suffice it to say this is a fat funk sandwich filled with a deep meaty groove slathered in buttery vocals, and topped with spicy horn licks.

Email me for the score if you’ve got an Earth, Wind & Fire cover band that would like to cover this. (Or if you’re Earth, Wind & Fire.)

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Demos Jazz

The 50 Year Shuffle

ron_deb
Ron and Deb Rienstra, age 50

These two fine folks just celebrated their 50th birthday. Oh, to look so good at such an advanced age!

This bubbly little jazz tune actually started its life as “The Heineken Maneuver,” after a joke that emerged at a jazz cafe the Rienstra and Scheer families have been attending. Shortly after I finished it, Ron and Deb had their 50th birthday bash and I decided to rename it in honor of the event. It was premiered with their son Philip on alto sax.

So get out on the dance floor–you’re never too old for “The 50 Year Shuffle“!

 

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Choir Church Congregational Songs Demos Hymn tunes

How Wide the Love of Christ!

Update 1/11/22: Sheet music for this tune is now available at gregscheer.com.

Now that my book is finished, I have a little more time for creative ventures. The first fruit of that time is a setting of Herman Stuempfle’s text “How Wide the Love of Christ!” I came across the text when searching Hymnary.org for hymns based on Ephesians 3:14-21. I was drawn to this one because it takes “the breadth and length and height and depth” and gives a verse to each word, followed by a doxology. I began with the intention of writing a big festive choral piece with brass, but it started morphing into a more intimate, jazzy setting–a very different feel, but I kind of like it.

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Art Music Demos Live Rock and/or Roll

All Hallow’s Eve, Sine Nomine Quartet

Last year I wrote a song cycle called One Long Year. This year, I’ve been trying to figure out what I’m going to do with it, if anything. This month, I’m recording my setting of Psalm 149 for a new Cardiphonia compilation. Today I had a string quartet scheduled to add some tracks to that project.

But you know me: if I have a string quartet showing up to record, how can I resist writing something new and non-obligatory for the occasion? So instead of the many things I should have been doing today, I felt compelled to write a string quartet arrangement of “All Hallow’s Eve” from One Long Year . This recording is the second take and third time they’d ever played the piece. Pretty good, I say.

By the way, the quartet has never really settled on a name for themselves. I hereby dub them the Sine Nomine Quartet–the No Name Four.

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Art Music Demos Rock and/or Roll

Deep Calls to Deep

greg_precisionAfter Easter, I often feel the need to shun my to do list, taking a little time for renewal and creation. (Hence the term, “recreation.”) This Eastertide it took the form of an idea for bass that came to me last week.

I had just gotten some work done on my trusty Fender Precision bass down at North Coast Guitar Co, and it was feeling great. That always leads to new musical ideas. The ideas kept swirling around in my head and finally came to full fruition this afternoon in the form of “Deep Calls to Deep.”

Because the whole recording is just bass, my boys and I were trying to think of good names for the song. “All About the Bass” is already taken. “Big Bottom”–also taken. I decided to take the high road with a phrase pulled from Psalm 42.

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Demos Jazz

Blue Step (with guest soloist Stephen Brown)

Stephen Brown and I have been collaborating for decades, so I was really pleased that he added a sax solo to my recent song, “Blue Step.” Now that we’ve got the DropBox sharing kinks mostly worked out, I hope you’ll hear more collaborations in the future.

(Stephen also showed me how the HTML code for the snazzy audio player above. It turns out that only neanderthals use plain old links anymore.)