Last week I posted a recording of my flute arrangement of “Good Christian Friends (Men), Rejoice.” Unfortunately, the flutist from that recording wasn’t available for the Christmas Eve service. But in a bad news/good news turn of events, recorder player par excellence, Cal Stapert, was willing to take over. Take a listen.
Added bonus: super sweet segue between the Good Christian prelude and the processional hymn “Once in Royal David’s City.”
Update 3/16/22: Sheet music for this song is now available at gregscheer.com.
Speaking of Kristen Zoeteway (I was in yesterday’s post), here’s another arrangement I wrote on a day that I knew Kristen was playing at COS. I know she’s always up for a challenge and that she’ll always have a full complement of flutes on hand: flute, piccolo, and alto flute.
In this case we employed the piccolo in the South African song “Sanna, Sannanina.” I tried to imitate an African flute style I’ve heard in which the flute/picc improvises rhythmic lines on top of singing or a band. We used it as a prelude on Palm Sunday with just djembe and piccolo, and it was pretty cool: MP3
One of the songs I arranged for Global Songs for Worship was the Arabic Lord’s Prayer (aka “Abana Alathi Fi Ssama,” also know as “Abana in Heaven”) from Egypt. For a song that I was told “would never be sung in North American churches,” it’s done pretty well for itself, appearing in Psalms for All Seasons, the forthcoming Lift Up Your Hearts, and churches and conferences across the country.
For those collections I arranged it with a drone that made the haunting melody sound even more, well, haunting. But Egyptians are more likely to sing it accompanied and in more of a folk style, so I decided to write a piano arrangement along those lines. We sang it a few weeks ago at COS, and it went swimmingly. Because this version has a stronger rhythmic backbone, it helps the congregation stay together. Take a listen: MP3. If you’re interested in seeing the music, just email me.
I am neck deep in the Holy Week flood of services and feeling pretty overwhelmed. What does Greg do when he’s feeling burned out and cranky? He writes music.
Today I was reading through a packet of Korean songs given to me by Paul Huh, and I came across this beautiful tune written by Paul and Seung Nam Kim. I wasn’t satisfied by the arrangement that accompanied the tune–though it was written by a composer with a far greater reputation than me–and so I wrote a new one. Although my version may not look especially simple on the page, it takes a direct, chordal approach to accompanying the melody, whereas the other one was quite “noodly.” To my ear this clarifies and strengthens the beauty of the melody. Added bonus: it will sound good with guitar, too.
This is part of a project that Paul and I are working on to translate and arrange some of the core repertoire of the Korean church.