This choral/congregation setting of Psalm 13 began its life as Alas! And Did My Savior Bleed (which, by the way, I think you should sing in your church this upcoming Lent). When TCS and I were doing the initial reading sessions, I decided that the arrangement of the tune MARTYRDOM would fit both texts. This tune and text combination appear in Psalms for All Seasons, but not this arrangement. You can only get that right here: MP3.
Category: Psalms
Update 10/6/20: Sheet music for this song can be downloaded here.
Next week, Psalms for All Seasons, a collection of a gazillion Psalm settings, will be given to every one who attends the Calvin Worship Symposium. Cry Out to God!, an accompanying CD made in collaboration with The Choral Scholars and a host of other friends, will also be released next week.
I’ve spent the last six months rehearsing, recording, and mixing this CD’s 22 songs. Along the way a number of songs have fallen by the wayside. In honor of the release of PfAS, I’m going to make a number of these songs available at my blog. You could call these songs “also rans,” “runner ups,” “the despised and rejected”; I call them Revenge of the Killer B’s in honor of an LP of the same name, which was a collection of B-sides* from various 80s artists.
First up is my setting of Psalm 5, “Hear My Words, O Lord.” It appears as Psalm 5C in the Psalms for All Seasons hymnal, but if you want the unsquished piano part you hear on this recording, see the link above. The recording is just a rough read through of the refrain without the reading. The reading allows the whole Psalm to be heard, and really lets the multiple voices of the original text come through.
*The back side of a single–if you don’t understand what I’m talking about, ask an old person.
By now y’all are probably sick of hearing about the Psalms of Ascent series at Church of the Servant. Sorry…
A few weeks ago Psalm 129 came up. Now, if you search hymnary.org for, say, Psalm 8 or 40, you’ll get around 60 hits. And most of them will be viable options. But if you search for Psalm 129, you’ll get two hits. And one of them is “Those hating Zion have afflicted me.” That makes for some tough going if you’re a worship planner trying to plan a service around Psalm 129.
I looked in my bag of tricks (the “bag” in this case is my file folders and google doc of the 150 Psalms) and found a song Bruce Benedict had written using the words of Isaac Watts. The song really grew on me. Psalm 129 is not an easy sell, but this musical setting of it made it feel somehow like the timeless struggle of good versus evil. The Psalm is essentially saying “The MAN (and you know who you are) has pushed me down since the day I was born, but he’s gonna get his in the end, because God’s on my side.” That’s the kind of sentiment that we cheer in a film about a triumphant underdog, but it makes us uncomfortable when we read it in the Bible.
Bruce’s original version has an ethereal, lament vibe, whereas mine is more angry, fight the man take on the music. I don’t know if this is a reflection of the difference between Bruce’s and my character, but it just kind of came out that way. It also came out as a full-blown arrangement with string quartet, piano and guitar. Pretty epic stuff. I described it to my pastor like this: “Imagine a film directed by Clint Eastwood in which a man exacts vengeance on the murderers of his family. This is the music that plays as he walks slowly out of town, with his gun still smoking in its holster.”
Take a listen to the MP3 of COS singing it a few Sundays ago, or geek out with the PDF full score.
Categories
SALVATION
In an odd unfolding of Psalmic fate, my top choice settings for two Psalms in the last month were both set to the same tune: SALVATION. In My Distress I Called to God (Psalm 120) and When God Restored Our Common Life (Psalm 126). The tune had not previously gained my attention, though its common enough that I have probably have used it before. Its from Kentucky Harmony, and like all great early American tunes it is rugged as the Appalachian mountains, yet as balanced a melody as Gregorian chant.
Shape note hymn tunes sound perfect in their original settings, with raw, static harmonies, sung with open-throated energy. However, they can sound like fish out of water when theyre set with more modern harmonies. Thats how I felt about the harmonization in the Psalter Hymnal. (Sorry Kenneth…) It wasnt bad, but it just didnt bring out the melodys charms.
Heres what I like about my reharmonization: It puts a big fat accent on the pickup note to each phrase; to my ear thats one of the keys to the tunes character. It uses big block chords, with no harmonic fussiness distracting from the tunes earthy modality. The broad harmonic movement is from D minor (i) in the first two phrases to Am (v) in the last two, which gives the melody a sense of movement. Finally, the deceptive cadence and short interlude gives the congregation a quick chance to breath before diving into the next verse.
Wow. I should be a used harmonization salesman Would you like to take it for a test drive?: PDF, MP3.
When Church of the Servant began its series on the Psalms of Ascents, I did some investigating to see which of these Psalms (120-134) could be used in a Psalm-based liturgy. It appeared to me that Psalm 134, with its calling and blessing sections, were a natural fit for the liturgy. Indeed, we ended up using this Psalm as offertory and benediction throughout the series, in a metrical version by Arlo Duba, with the OLD HUNDRETH tune arranged by Eelco Vos. But I had originally planned to switch halfway to a setting of the Psalm I first wrote during the summer.
The problem was that my setting was half-baked. It had some good ideas, but just wasnt clicking. In fact, when I was at The Singing Church planning meeting in September we read through the song. The reception was tepid, whereas the group seemed to really like my Psalm 103 setting, “From the Dust.” (That, by the way, is why I try out not-quite-ready-for-primetime songs on occasions like this: it’s bad for my reputation, but gives me just the kind of feedback I need.)
Finally, it was do or die time. Jack was preaching on Psalm 134 on Thanksgiving morning, and I needed to decide whether to get my draft into fighting form or just give up on it entirely. (The Psalm is not in the lectionary, so this was likely to be my only chance to use it.)
I got to work: I cut a whole bridge-like section that provided a ramp up into the chorus but which also proved tacky and tedious; the double chorus became a single chorus with a tagged phrase; I trimmed the interlude back into a more manageable turn-around. The parts I cut were all good ideas, but they were getting in the way of the song. By the time I was done, I had edited it from three pages down to two, and it was now a reasonably good, get-to-the-point-but-don’t-wear-out-your-welcome song.
The key to great art, I always like to say, is what you leave out. I wouldn’t claim that this new song is great art, but it certainly took a step in a good direction when I gave it a rigorous editorial pruning.
Take a look (PDF). Take a listen (MP3, from the COS Thanksgiving Day service)
Update 12/29/21: Sheet music for this song is now available at gregscheer.com.
At Church of the Servant, we’re doing a series on the Psalms of Ascent. That’s the good news. The bad news is that there are certain Ascent Psalms which are slim pickings from a congregational song point of view. Psalm 132 is one of these, as was made abundantly clear last night as I was rushing to prepare music for a Guitarchestra rehearsal that was rapidly approaching.
As I searched hymnary.org, I found a good text by Isaac Watts called “Arise, O King of Grace, Arise,” that teases out Christological imagery from the Psalm in a way that only Watts can do. I valiantly tried to finish setting music to it by rehearsal time, but I was thwarted by making copies, unlocking doors and other mundane tasks.
But today I completed the song, and I want to make sure the good folks of the Guitarchestra have a chance to familiarize themselves with it before the next rehearsal. See the link above for scores. So put down your turkey and get practicing! (People who aren’t Gstra members are also welcome to try it out.)
Categories
SINKING SHIPS 8.7.8.7 D
Update: Sheet music for this tune (still waiting for a text to call its own)
is now available at gregscheer.com.
Last night I had a rehearsal/recording session with The Choral Scholars as part of our upcoming Psalm CD. The recording is in conjunction with a forthcoming print publication from the CICW and Faith Alive that will feature multiple settings of all 150 Psalms. We’re reading through 20 or 30 Psalm settings each rehearsal; the “fair use” clips will go on the web, and we’ll polish up a few dozen songs for the CD.
As I was preparing for the session, I came across a great metrical setting of Psalm 12 by Adam Tice–and it’s not easy to write a great metrical setting of Psalm 12–that included a hand-written note “need another sturdy tune like Latvian hymn.” To a person who has OCD (obsessive compositional disorder), the words “need another tune” read as “Greg, write a new tune in the remaining 1/2 hour before rehearsal starts.” Which is exactly what I did.
Listen to an MP3 of TCS singing the song. If you like what you hear (and it’s hard to dislike anything TCS sings), head over to my website to download the PDF of the tune. I don’t have permission to use Adam’s text, so I’ve left the score blank. But that’s a great opportunity for you to write your own text in 8787D meter.
By the way, are you wondering why I named the tune SINKING SHIPS? What better tune name to go with a text entitled “Lying Lips”?
From the Dust You Shall Raise Us Up (Solo, SATB Choir and Piano)
I posted a song at the beginning of Lent called From the Dust You Shall Raise Us Up, with verses taken from Psalm 103. Here it is again, this time arranged as a choral anthem: MP3, PDF.
I feel bad that I haven’t updated my blog in over a week. On the other hand, my last post was the day before Palm Sunday, and you can’t really blame a church musician for blogging less during Holy Week. Though I’m not working on any big projects, my production hasn’t completely stalled. Over the next few days I’ll post some odds and ends from the last week. Here’s the first:
String arrangement of Michael Joncas’ Psalm 118/This Is the Day. (MP3)
Every Easter the lectionary calls for Psalm 118 as the Psalm of the day. As always, I try to find just the right setting for the musicians I have. In the past I’ve done Psalm 118s by Taize (this year’s plan B), Patrick Geary (exciting, but I’ve done it too much recently), Lawler/Guiao (needs 2 trumpets; I had strings), and me (too hard). I came across Joncas’ bouncy “This Is the Day” and decided to give it a try. Since I had string ensemble available, I wrote a quick arrangement that had a number of options I could use on the fly. During the Easter rehearsal, we decided that recorder melody against pizzacato string accompaniment would make a great intro. The strings come back again on each congregational refrain with descant.
Categories
Sneak Pique
Last night I had a rehearsal with The Choral Scholars. (You’ll remember TCS from our CD Global Songs for Worship.) We sang through 20 songs, the first of many marathon sessions coming throughout the spring and summer. All of this work will result in a CD of Psalms that will be released in conjunction with the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship‘s new Psalm collection.
I’m pretty excited about this. As you can hear from this rough recording of the rehearsal, TCS sounds great even when they’re sight reading. And they’re fun to work with, too! Pique your interest in the project by taking a listen to my arrangement of Bruce Benedict‘s Thou God of Love (Psalm 120).