Category: FAWM 2022

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2022 Psalm Collaborations Church Congregational Songs Demos FAWM 2022 Psalms

Psalm 23: God Is Our Shepherd (with Michael Morgan)

Update: Sheet music for this song is now available at gregscheer.com.

It’s hard to believe I’ve never written a song based on Psalm 23. (Unless you count this and this.) Perhaps I felt it was such low-hanging fruit that I moved on to other Psalms, or maybe there are so many beautiful Psalm 23 songs that I felt I didn’t have anything to add.

In any case, FAWM 2022 and a beautiful text by Michael Morgan were the push I needed to write my own setting. And while I don’t expect it will ever displace “The King of Love My Shepherd Is” in anyone’s heart, I’m still pleased with how mine came out. It is simple, using a pentatonic scale in the melody and unadorned harmonies. This serves Michael’s modest, beautiful text well.

1. God is our shepherd, so faithful and sure,
whose care and affection forever endure;
boundless in giving, God meets every need:
streams to refresh us, and pastures to feed.

2. Lord, your great spirit our souls will restore;
your vow is to ransom, and ours to adore.
Paths of contentment, vales of despair,
we will not waver – salvation is here!

3. Fed at your table, and warmed by your face;
blest with sweet oil and redeemed by your grace;
goodness and mercy are ours for always;
heaven is filled with rejoicing and praise!

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Demos FAWM 2022 Jazz

The One More Note Samba

When I’m not furiously writing Psalms this month, I’m being lured into various FAWM challenges. Every week in February at fawm.org, someone posts a writing prompt, like “Write a song with a body part in it (a la Shakira’s “Hips Don’t Lie”). This week’s prompt was “Write a song with one note.” Of course, the gold standard example is Carlos Antonio Jobim’s “One Note Samba.” If you don’t know it, you need to listen to it. Right. Now.

Jen and Greg, being ridiculously cute.

I decided to write a song as an homage to Jobim, the great Brazilian composer whose name is synonymous with bossa nova. The homage is self-explanatory if you read the lyrics. Musically, I patterned the song after his, but whereas his B section is a flurry of scales, mine is a rapid-fire one-note melody.

Of course, since it’s nearly Valentine’s Day, my little bonbon of a love song is also an ode of love dedicated to my wife Jen. As you can see from this picture, we are ridiculously cute together and fantastically in love.

Jobim wrote a one-note samba–
a classic full of wit and charm–
but his masterpiece left eleven notes
to be used by other bards.

I’ll lay claim to two of them:
an E flat and a G.
I need twice as many notes:
I’m half as clever as Jobim.

I will use my second note to
tell you you’re the only one who
makes me sing of song of love so
true. For I was just a
lonely one who wondered if I’d
ever find a love just like the
love that I have fin’lly found in you!

That brings me back to my first note;
back to my first theme.
And though it’s not as elegant
as a samba by Jobim,

two notes are better than one note
because they make perfect harmony.
Just like the two of us–you and I–
go together perfectly!

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FAWM 2022 Jazz Live

Take 3.0

I’m sure you all know the jazz standard, Take 5. This one’s like that, but in 3/4 time. And while it may seem they have nothing more in common than a number in their title, they share a similar rhythmic foundation. Take 5’s underlying rhythm is:
| eighth, quarter, eighth, quarter | quarter, quarter | = 3+2
and mine is:
| eighth, quarter, eighth, quarter | quarter, quarter, quarter | =3+3

I wrote this a month ago and gave it a try at my Euro Bistro gig. It went…okay. I decided the lackluster performance was not the fault of the players, but of the song itself. Back to the drawing board. I moved things around and began to feel a little better about it, but still, it was just…okay. Back to the drawing board again. The third time, as they say, is the charm. Indeed, version 3.0 was a keeper. The form felt more satisfying and the harmonic movement pushed forward with vigor and vim. You can hear it in this rough live performance. Even though the trio was sight-reading the song, there was a naturalness to their playing and improvising.

Why an Oakley pants ad? Simply because it had “Take (Pro Pant) 3.0” in the product title.

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2022 Psalm Collaborations Church Congregational Songs Demos FAWM 2022 Psalms

Psalm 20: Blessing (with Kate Bluett)

Update: Sheet music for this song is now available at gregscheer.com.

Kate Bluett and I have already completed one Psalm collaboration, last year’s raucous “The Thunder’s Rage Is Roaring” (Psalm 57). This time around is a more placid song. Kate’s beautiful rendering of Psalm 20 is simply called “Blessing.”

She has recast the language of the Psalm in a way that speaks powerfully into our own context. For example, “Some trust in chariots and some in horses” becomes “Some trust in arms and some in power.” In my estimation, this is exactly the kind of “transplanting” that should take place in modern Psalm songs.

Musically, I kept things very simple. Much of the time the harmonies are rocking gently between a C and an F/C. This musical moderation means that even a shift to an A minor chord feels important. It also lets the melody and words speak with a candor and guilelessness that isn’t possible in more sophisticated music.

1. May God give answer when you call,
and may God’s name defend you
to shield you from what harms befall
and with great love befriend you,
then when at last the shadows fall,
with shepherd’s care yet tend you,
and may you see God’s hand in all,
wheree’er your road may send you.

2. May you take all you have and do
to be today your off’ring,
and give to God in love and truth,
in happiness and suff’ring.
May God send mercy filling you,
your heart’s desires uncov’ring,
with graces pouring into you,
and peace upon you hov’ring.

3. May God pay heed to all your prayers,
and may we know the answer,
rejoicing with you as you share
the goodness God shall grant you.
Some trust in arms and some in pow’r,
but we shall trust in heaven,
and trust still more in every hour
the vict’ry God has given.

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2022 Psalm Collaborations Church Congregational Songs Demos FAWM 2022 Hymn tunes Psalms

Psalm 69: Have Pity, My God (with David J. Diephouse)

Update: Sheet music for this song is now available at gregscheer.com.

I’ve collaborated with David Diephouse before (80, 107, 148) and am glad to be co-writing a new Psalm setting with him. This one, Psalm 69, comes with an origin story of sorts. David writes:

I recall hearing my mother relate a family legend about her grandfather, who was a trawlerman on the Zuider Zee. One day, his boat got caught in a sudden squall that left it capsized. While waiting to be rescued the crew kept up their spirits by singing the opening lines of Psalm 69. The story may or may not be partly apocryphal, but I like it.

I love to hear stories about how people have used the Psalms in everyday life. It’s easy to see why a person adrift in the sea would recall the lines of Psalm 69, because they are the cry of a person drowning. In the Psalm, it is an emotional drowning, fighting a flood of sorrow, betrayal, and fatigue. I wanted music that could bear the weight of the emotional variety: desperation, vindication, and hope, ultimately gravitating toward a minor melody with a rugged rhythmic foundation. I would love to hear it sung by an early music consort. For now, enjoy a demo recorded by the Greg Consort.

1. Have pity, my God: I am drowning in sorrow.
I’ve cried out to you, can you hear my desperation?
The flood presses in and the waters keep rising;
I’m weary and see little hope of your salvation.

Out of the depths of my pain you will raise me,
God, you will answer when nothing can save me,
My gratefulness I’ll proclaim,
Singing praise to your name,
to your glorious name.

2. I feel so much hate, all my friends have betrayed me;
I hear how they scoff when they see that I am fasting.
You see my great need, all the pain that besets me.
Oh, show me your grace, for your love is everlasting. Refrain

3. May all who have wronged me know shame and contrition
And tremble and faint when they feel your indignation.
Demand from them all they have earned for their thieving;
Ignore their laments when they see my vindication. Refrain

All those who have known you find healing and wholeness,
Your deeds are resounding through all of your creation,
And heaven and earth, every mountain and ocean,
Will join your redeemed in a mighty celebration. Refrain

Categories
2022 Psalm Collaborations Church Congregational Songs Demos FAWM 2022 Hymn tunes Psalms

Psalm 8: How Often in the Deep of Night (with Linda Bonney Olin)

Update: Sheet music for this song is now available at gregscheer.com.

Like many Februarys, this month I will be taking part in FAWM: February Album Writing Month. This year I will be meeting the challenge of writing 14 songs in 28 days with the help of 14 lyricists who will contribute renderings of 14 Psalms, inching me ever closer to my goal of writing a song on each Psalm.

This first collaboration is with Linda Bonney Olin, who has contributed a beautiful setting of Psalm 8. One would think that the Psalm 8 well had long ago run dry, but Linda has written a text that is full of child-like wonder, bringing a new sense of awe to our hearing of the Psalm.

I have supported this ethereal text with music that floats, seemingly untethered from a tonal center. Though the song’s key is (more or less) D major, the very first downbeat is a G chord with an A in the melody. From there this nebulous shifting of harmonies continues into a (more or less) C region before a sudden change of course leads us back to D major. Interestingly, when the song lands back in D it sounds strangely unresolved.

1. How often in the deep of night
have I in silence gazed
at twinklings on the edge of sight
and stood, O Lord, amazed!
Beyond the slice of universe
that mortal eyes can see,
creation vast and so diverse
shines forth in majesty.

2. So high are you, O Lord, our God,
above all humankind!
Our finite minds are overawed
by marvels you designed.
Yet you have given humans charge
of what your hands have made.
To tend your creatures small and large,
this trust on us you laid.

3. You wield supreme authority,
yet you are kind and fair.
We too, Lord, in humility,
must act with gracious care.
We honor you when we respect
all beings’ sacred worth
and, as your stewards, we protect
the glories of your earth.