The Musical Diary of Greg ScheerMy son, Theo, creates some pretty spectacular animations. He’ll disappear for a few hours and then come back with a stop motion mash up of drawings, cut paper, cellophane, and moving objects. “Flight” follows the adventures of a paper airplane. I finally got a chance this weekend to import the pictures into iMovie and put a soundtrack to it. Enjoy!
The 2nd movement of my Maundy Thursday piece for cellos. Since the text begins with “when they had sung the hymn,” I decided to give this movement a hymn-like structure–very simple rhythms with a singable melody. Of course, the harmonies are more biting than the average hymn. Take a look: PDF.
The Shadow of Desertion: Matthew 26:30-35
30 When they had sung the hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.
31 Then Jesus said to them, “You will all become deserters because of me this night; for it is written,
‘I will strike the shepherd,
and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.’
32 But after I am raised up, I will go ahead of you to Galilee.” 33 Peter said to him, “Though all become deserters because of you, I will never desert you.” 34 Jesus said to him, “Truly I tell you, this very night, before the cock crows, you will deny me three times.” 35 Peter said to him, “Even though I must die with you, I will not deny you.” And so said all the disciples.
One of the most powerful services of the church year is the Tenebrae service on Maundy Thursday of Holy Week. It is a sequence of solemn readings from the last scenes of Jesus’ life as he descends toward the cross. One of the things that gives the service such impact is that after each reading, one of seven candles is extinguished until the sanctuary is left in total darkness.
I’ve always wanted to compose a piece for seven musicians to accompany this service, with a movement of music to follow each scripture reading. After each reading, one musician at a time will turn off his/her light and leave the stage. By the 7th reading, only one musician will remain. This year, due to an abundance of cellos at the church, I finally have my chance to implement this decade long idea and am writing a piece for cello septet.
Here is a rough draft of movement #1, based on Matthew 26:20-25: When it was evening, he took his place with the twelve; 21 and while they were eating, he said, “Truly I tell you, one of you will betray me.” 22 And they became greatly distressed and began to say to him one after another, “Surely not I, Lord?” 23 He answered, “The one who has dipped his hand into the bowl with me will betray me. 24 The Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that one by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that one not to have been born.” 25 Judas, who betrayed him, said, “Surely not I, Rabbi?” He replied, “You have said so.”
No one tells me anything. I just stumbled across a recording of my anthem Abana at the GIA website.
The other day I was shopping for some kitchen stuff when I came across a banana hook. These things are awesome, because they let you hang your bananas to ripen like they do in their natural habitat, resulting in perfect, evenly ripened bananas.
My enthusiasm soon turned into song.
My first impulse was to make it a lounge lizard song extolling the virtues of various kitchen tools, from the point of view of a guy who thinks it would impress the ladies. But it soon morphed into a joyous surf rock romp. I especially love how the lyrics feel slightly naughty, as if there’s a double entendre. (There’s not.)
I’ve got a banana hook,
and I know how to use it.
Baby, won’t you take a look,
take a look at me?
‘Cause with my banana hook,
and the way I use it,
I ripen my bananas
so evenly.
One of the great things about FAWM (February Album Writing Month; http://fawm.org/) is that encourages you to just write. You’ve got to write fast enough (14 songs in 28 days) that you can’t second guess yourself. (Is this a great idea, or merely good? Will this come across as melodramatic? Is this my style? Etc.) The looming deadline encourages you to experiment and risk failure.
Which brings us to today’s post. One part Michael Bublé, two parts Barry Manilow, and all sad, it’s not my typical fare. That’s alright. It’s February Album Writing Month.
(Special thanks to Maria Poppen for laying down the heart-wrenching violin tracks.)
Quiet as midnight in your little home
A table for two for a party of one.
You’re still not sure where it all went wrong
All you know is you’re alone.
Stop feeling sorry for yourself.
‘Cause you can’t stop this at all.
Stop feeling sorry for yourself.
Can’t stop the rain from coming down.
Can’t stop the dirt turning to mud
Can’t stop the pain from soaking into your soul.
Can’t stop thinking about love (but you can)
Stop feeling sorry for yourself.
‘Cause you can’t stop this at all.
Stop feeling sorry for yourself.
I was challenged to write music for a somewhat irregularly metered hymn text based on Ecclesiastes. (Okay, not directly challenged, but I accepted it as such.) Since the text talked about stretching and striving, I thought this rising melodic figure (with a chromatically descending bass) fit the them quite well.
The author commented that he could hear the cast of Fiddler on the Roof singing it. I’m unsure whether I should take that as a compliment or not…
If you want to revel in the nitty gritty of the musical details, see this PDF.
Update 1/11/22: Sheet music for this tune is now available at gregscheer.com.
A few months ago I wrote a tune for a text by Herman Stuempfle. Strangely, when I went searching for a text to accompany this week’s sermon on the Wedding in Cana, I was led again to Stuempfle. Even stranger? The new text, “Come, Join in Cana’s Feast,” fits the same tune!
Because yesterday’s service was led by the Joyful Noise Orchestra, I had some cool instrumental options. I’m a huge fan of jazz with orchestra, so I broke out my hollow body Ibanez and wrote some string parts, a la Wes Montgomery’s Bumpin’. Throw in Lauren Figueroa on vocals and Joel Klamer on tenor sax, I figure you can’t go wrong.
Here’s the the MP3 of the service. Below, for your listening pleasure is some real music: Wes Montgomery’s Bumpin’.
The Church of the Servant choir is singing movements of Vivaldi’s Gloria throughout the year. Recently we sang “Dominus Deus, Agnus Dei” (“Lord God, Lamb of God…that takes away the sins of the world have mercy upon us”) during the confession.
Many of these movements can be found in public domain editions, but others have incomplete resources. Such was the case with this movement. There were plenty of choral scores, but no realization of the figured bass that was light enough to leave room for the cello. (You’ll remember that in a lot of Baroque music the continuo was a bass line with chord symbols called figured bass. The Baroque keyboardist was expected to improvise chords above the bass line. Today, few players have this skill.)
You would think that filling in chords above a bass line would be a simple task tapping into skills learned in freshman theory, but it’s actually surprisingly hard to get into the stylistic mindset of another composer and flesh out their music in a convincing way. You can assess my success here: PDF. Of course, compositional success can only be achieved when implemented by actual musicians. In this case, I had the best: Erin De Young sang the solo and Andrew Plaisier played cello. I’m blessed to be at a church with people like this!
In 1971, Priscilla Wright wrote a song based on the prophesies of Joel. It was a scripture song like many of its era, with verses that quote a biblical passage verbatim and a music style that mimics Jewish folk song. We ended up singing it on a Joyful Noise Sunday, so I wrote a quick little arrangement for strings, brass, woodwinds, and percussion. Email me if you need a score.