Category: Hymn tunes

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Church Commissions Congregational Songs Demos FAWM 2020 Hymn tunes

T. L. Moody: Will Rise in Spring

Update 1/10/22: Sheet music for this song is now available at gregscheer.com.

Another collaboration with Tammy Moody. Like many of her songs, this one features vivid images of nature. In this, she takes us through the seasons, ultimately connecting spring’s budding new life to our hope of resurrection in Christ.

Besides writing wonderful lyrics, Tammy is also a professional photographer. She took this photo of the yellow boat. (You can read about the meaning of the boat in the previous post.)

1. Spent blossoms fall and then are swept away.
Light lingers late, as longer grows the day.
Sweet May’s near done, as are the cooler eves;
as spring wanes, the summer comes with plums and leaves.

2. Green shoot unfurls to welcome sun’s embrace;
so, turn my heart and bask in warming grace.
Join, too, my voice with larks in ceaseless praise,
and join stream, join meadow where the young lambs graze.

3. Crisp fall’s red leaves are fading now to brown;
Soon, skiffs of snow will kiss the sleeping ground.
Through brittle winds the breath of winter brings
and I pray what lies in earth will rise in spring.

4. I praise the One who paints the sunsets’ hues.
I praise the One who tints the lilac blue.
I join my voice with song creation sings:
For in Christ, what lies in earth will rise in spring.

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Church Commissions Congregational Songs Demos FAWM 2020 Hymn tunes

T. L. Moody: Hands Come Gleaning.

Update 1/10/22: Sheet music for this song is now available at gregscheer.com.

Tammy Moody wrote the lyrics for this new song. I love the way she ties together images of harvesting the land, social justice, and the Lord’s Supper. The more connections we can make between what we do in worship and in the world, the better.

Tammy also took the picture of a boat. Why a boat, you ask? As we discussed the relationship between words and music, she told me about someone who said lyrics are like a boat: they need music like a boat needs water; once the two come together, their journey. begins.

1. O give us eyes to see them,
forgotten bits of grain
discarded in the harvest
as chaff upon the plain

O let our hands come gleaning
the lonely little ones,
so precious in your eyes, Lord,
it’s you who bid them, “Come”

We gather them to you, Lord,
to celebrate your feast
For such as these, your children,
O let our love increase.

2. O give us ears to hear them,
faint, pleading, hungry cries
from outcast souls and beggars
before we hurry by

O let us go to seek them
until the last is found
and mercy’s hands not tiring
‘til all their wounds are bound

We gather them to you, Lord,
to celebrate your feast
For both the babe and beggar,
O, let our love increase.

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Church Congregational Songs Demos Hymn tunes

The Church of Christ Cannot Be Bound (Adam M. L. Tice)

Fuller Ave CRC is in the middle of a sermon series called “Love Your Neighbor.” What better hymn could be sung than Adam Tice’s “The Church of Christ Cannot Be Bound”?:

Adam M. L. Tice

The church of Christ cannot be bound
by walls of wood or stone.
Where charity and love are found–
there can the church be known. 

It is sung to a variety of tunes. My favorite is the rousing MCKEE (In Christ There Is No East or West). But since the sermon series runs for ten weeks Pastor Nate and I decided to use a different tune each week.

Enter my new tune, BRIDESMAID.* Though I rocked it out in the above demo, it was conceived as a simple folk song in the tradition of 60s protest songs like “The Times They Are A Changin” or “If I Had a Hammer.” Send me an email if you want the leadsheet. I’ll check with Adam to see if it’s alright to distribute.

*Why BRIDESMAID, you wonder? This is actually the second tune I’ve written for this text. I decided to retire the first. “Always the bridesmaid and never the bride.” And with that, I shall get cleaned up for Matt and Larissa’s wedding, where I’m sure both bride and bridesmaid will be perfect!

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Church Congregational Songs Demos Hymn tunes

GILLIGAN/Transfiguration

Update: For sheet music or to adopt this orphan tune, head over to gregscheer.com.

You probably know Harry Plantinga and me as the duo who co-founded Hymnary.org. As of a month ago, though, we are also a musical duo–a veritable hymnological Lennon and McCartney.

Harry wrote a Transfiguration hymn based on Luke 9:28-36 that needed a tune. I suggested my tune GILLIGAN (published in the hymnal In Melody and Song and also available at my website). After the text and tune pairing was finalized, he decided to use it as a test case for a new hymn presentation software he’s developing with Hymnary.org. You can try this “scroll-view” prototype here: https://rh.hymnary.org/history/v0.1.html (press “m” on your keyboard to start the demo) or click on the link below to read the full text.

Transfiguration
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Choir Church Commissions Congregational Songs Demos Hymn tunes

Speak Sabbath O’er My Soul (TL Moody)

Update 1/10/22: Sheet music for this song is now available at gregscheer.com.

My second collaboration with TL Moody is a tune for her text “Speak Sabbath O’er My Soul.” What I love about this text is that positions Sabbath as something life-giving that God does for us rather than a teeth-gritting discipline we do for God.

I went with a serene, stately setting of the text, which I think creates quite a lovely, mystical mood. The piano provides a steady pulse, and the vocals feel like inhaling and exhaling on top of that. (Yes, there are echoes of Sibelius’ “Be Still My Soul.”)

Fortuitously, the day I wrote this was also choir rehearsal day at Fuller Ave CRC. My choir didn’t know they were showing up for a recording session!

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Choir Demos Hymn tunes Quirky

A New Year’s Carol

A New Year’s Carol

As the year draws to a close, one has to take stock and observe, “That sucked.” Yes, 2018 was about the worst year since 7th grade. Worst. Year. Ever.

The good news? It can only go up from here. To commemorate the enormous sinkhole that was 2018 and the great hopes for a brighter future, I’ve written “A New Year’s Carol.” On the surface it may sound a little bleak to sing “it’s been a terrible year,” but there is hope embedded in the music of this carol. You see, the key rises a whole step with each repeat of the carol. Crazy, huh? You want to really geek out? I double all the tracks at the octave so that I could create Shepard Tones–the effect that the song continuously rises without actually going out of range. (Although I’m singing nearly four octaves all told.)

By all accounts it’s been a terrible year.
As the days dragged into months,
there was little to cheer.
Sing “Oo la loo ley!”
when there’s nothing to say.
Sing “Oo la ley loo!”
for what else can you do?
But next year cannot be worse,
so it’s all up from here!

You want to sing along? Here’s the music: PDF.
You want to hear the Shepard Tones more clearly? Here’s an instrumental MP3.

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Church Commissions Congregational Songs Demos Hymn tunes

Is It I, Lord?

Christopher L. Webber,
collaborator extraordinaire and completely unaware

My third collaboration with Christopher Webber is a new tune for his social justice hymn, “Is It I, Lord?” The meter of the text is 8.5.5.5 D, which is very unusual. (Unusual, as in “I don’t think it exists anywhere else in the world. Ever.”) It was quite challenging to compose a tune that matched this unusual meter and fit each verse of the tune. But every musical challenge has a solution!

Christopher and I work together remarkably well. Our collaboration is so seamless that we barely need words. I’m joking, of course. I’ve never met the man. Maybe someday I will and he’ll either hug me or punch me.

I have a piano score for this song and would be glad to email it to you if you ask nicely. I will let you know when all these songs are released by World Library Publications.

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Arrangement Church Commissions Congregational Songs Demos Hymn tunes

Many Fields to Plow, piano/organ

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

It seems that people are clamoring* for a keyboard arrangement of “Many Fields to Plow.” Who am I to say No?

What I like most about the keyboard version is that it brings out the flowing nature of the melody in a way that my voice and guitar demo doesn’t. Above is the organ MP3, but it also works well with piano. If you ask nicely, I’ll send you the score.

*At least three people have clamored: Tammy, me, and one other.

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Church Congregational Songs Hymn tunes Quirky

A Christian’s Duty

When one of the members of the St. Sinner Orchestra went to the hospital with a bowel obstruction, I knew just the song to cheer him up: Blest Is the Man Whose Bowels Move.

I wrote a tune (“A CHRISTIAN’S DUTY) a few years ago to accompany Isaac Watt’s classic text, but didn’t have a good recording of it until now. You’re welcome.

You can read the story and see the sheet music here.

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Choir Church Commissions Congregational Songs Demos Hymn tunes

Let Us Walk in the Light

Christopher L. Webber

My last collaboration with Christopher Webber was successful enough that I’ve been asked to compose two more tunes for his hymn texts. This time around it’s a simple text–much simpler than his normal fare. Since his texts–and the tunes that accompany them–are usually much heavier and more cerebral, I wanted to something bright, light, and lively.

Given the “walking in the light” theme of the text, I thought a walking tempo spiritual would be in order. In some ways, it reminds me of South African songs like “Siyahamba.” What’s important is that it fits the text like a glove–it really lets it sing.

So sit back and enjoy the dulcet tones of Greg, Greg, Greg, and Greg singing “Let Us Walk in the Light.”