Category: Demos

Patiently (Psalm 40)

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

Tonight at COS we’re throwing a big Lent party we call Ash Wednesday. (Not really, it’s just Ash Wednesday service.) As I chose music for the end of the service, I wanted to find music that was somewhat unobtrusive so that people could focus on the ashes and silent reflection. The song that came to mind is my setting of Psalm 40, “Patiently.” It’s one I’ve never used in a service before because it’s so long. But for music to accompany reflection its lengthy dialogue of verses and refrain fits perfectly. So come to the service tonight to hear it in context. To prepare your heart, sit at the piano with the music (see link above) or listen to the MP3.

Church Demos

A Mark of Grace

At this year’s Calvin Worship Symposium, I’m planning music for a service that uses the story of Cain and Abel as the sermon scripture. As you can imagine there are a TON of congregational songs about that one…

Neal Plantinga is preaching, and described his sermon as exploring the mark of Cain as punishment and protection. Cain’s “mark of grace” is a foreshadowing of Christ on the cross–the ultimate punishment that leads to the greatest blessing. Though I found a few hymns that got in the ballpark of the sermon theme (“God of Grace and God of Glory” and “Praise, My Soul, the King of Heaven”), I decided I’d give a go at writing one especially for the occasion.

The result is the appropriately titled “A Mark of Grace.” Check out the PDF score and Finalified MP3. This is still a working draft, but I decided to post it to my music blog so I wouldn’t ruin my Christmas thinking about it. This has been one of the more difficult things I’ve written in a while. In the first draft, the lyrics got the point across, but were too informational. That is, I fit in all the right words, but singing a list of characters from Genesis is not particularly inspirational. Plus, my verses were too long, so it felt tiresome.* In my second draft, I struck upon the idea of taking the original 16 line verses and trimming them to 8 lines of verse and 4 lines of pre-chorus. The pre-chorus provided a musical ramp between the verse and chorus that felt just right. But still, the rhyme scheme was so tight and the theological ideas so expansive that I had very little wiggle room with the lyrics. By draft #3 (this one) I felt like things had started to settle in lyrically and musically, though I’m thinking seriously of changing to 4/4 time throughout the whole song.

I think it’s best that I sit on it for a few days to see how it feels with a little distance. Feel free to give me feedback.

* But I kind of liked this section of the first draft:
Like Adam in the garden
Like Eve eating the fruit
Our family tree grows crooked
Its poisoned at the root.

Church Demos Rock and/or Roll

Keep Your Lamps Trimmed and Burning

Post author By Greg Scheer
Post date November 23, 2009
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On Sunday night Rebecca Jordan Heys preached on the parable of the ten bridesmaids and asked me to conclude the sermon by leading the spiritual “Keep Your Lamps Trimmed and Burning.” Like many people, I know the song from the popular choral arrangement by Andre Thomas, but it has traveled far and wide, as you can hear in this YouTube video by Blind Willie Johnson and this one by Hot Tuna. In any case, on Friday afternoon as I played around with the song and tried to figure out how best to lead it, I began laying down some tracks in Logic Pro and came up with this little demo.

Church Demos

At the Cross (I Know a Place)

Post author By Greg Scheer
Post date October 10, 2009
No Comments on At the Cross (I Know a Place)

One of my favorite praise songs is “At the Cross” by Randy and Terry Butler. It’s simple, singable and has meaningful lyrics. But, like many praise songs I’ve never been convinced by the piano arrangements that appear with it in hymnals. Since my church relies so heavily on the piano for accompaniment, I decided to write a new piano accompaniment for the song. Take a listen to the robotic, Finalified MP3 of the arrangement.

Demos

Crossing the Jordan

When I lived in Tallahassee I played a lot of mandolin and took part in “bluegrass night”at a friend’s house. As that music worked its way into my blood, it inevitably came out in the form of a new song: Crossing the Jordan. I have a special fondness for this song, and I hope someday someone will take it upon themselves to perform and record it better than I do on this demo. It could be a bluegrass group, or a gospel quartet, or…

Demos Rock and/or Roll

Tight Rope

I’m always inspired by a challenge. My latest compositional challenge has come in the form of my good friend’s wife’s cousin, Morgan Bracy. (It’s all about who you know…) Morgan is a fantastic singer working in Nashville who I met a few months back. We decided to write some songs together, and the first fruit of our labor is “Tight Rope.” She wrote the lyrics a while back and I wrote the first draft of the music while in Singapore. Last week I recorded a rough demo of the song. The demo is ugly, but the melody is catchy.

Demos Rock and/or Roll

Happy Valentine’s Day, Amy!

Post author By Greg Scheer
Post date February 13, 2009
1 Comment on Happy Valentine’s Day, Amy!

In 33 minutes it will be Valentine’s Day. And what better way to express my love to my wife of 15 years than with a song? “This House is Lonely” was written the first time Amy went away for a weekend. We had been married for a year or two and it just seemed so strange after living for 26 years without her that I’d miss her so much after just a few days away. I couldn’t sleep, so I stayed up and wrote this song.

Demos Rock and/or Roll

For You

A long time ago, there was this 23 year old who was trying to figure out life. He was a Christian, but he was also a musician–and he couldn’t figure out how the two went together. He was studying music composition, but led a double life writing rock music. One weekend he ended up at a big outdoor Christian festival in New England and he got to play play at a coffee house. All the other people at the coffee house did inspiring songs of faith, accompanied by guitar, but this 23 year old sang songs like “Sometimes I Feel Like I Don’t Know” and “Psycho Killer” accompanied by his electric bass. He caught the ear of Dan Russell, a Boston-are producer who had worked with Robin Lane, Andy Pratt and Mark Heard. He was invited to send the big city producer a demo, and the rest is history.

No really, it’s history. The 23 year old was me, and I totally misjudged what a big city producer would want to hear. I worked up some demos that I thought would fit with some of the people Dan Russell worked with. At the time I was particularly enamored with Maria Mckee of Lone Justice, so I sent him a cassette (remember those?) with a few songs including this one, “For You.” At the time I thought it would fit her perfectly, but Dan’s reaction was something like, “Huh?” It turns out that he was more interested in me as a songwriter/performer than as a songwriter for any singers he worked with. Oh well…

“For You” is sung by Shoshana Feinstein, who appears to be going strong after all these years. Keys and production are by my good friend Jim DeFrancesco. Hey, it was 80s and I was trying to write the perfect pop hit. Cut me a little slack!

Church Demos Retuned hymn

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.”

Colin Demos

What Did You Mean?

At this point I’ve written over 30 songs with Colin Gordon-Farleigh. This latest is a ballad called “What Do You Mean?” I decided to do something different with this post. Usually I just make an MP3 of Finale playing back the score, but this song doesn’t sound right with a machine’s rigid playback. So here is a recording of yours truly singing “What Do You Mean?” in one take into the built in mics on my Mac. Not enough for you? Here’s the music for you to play at the piano.