This is, literally, my musical diary–notes fresh from my pen and recorded in a few hours. You can find my finished works elsewhere; here, it's all about capturing the moment!
Update 1/15/22: Sheet music for this song is now available at gregscheer.com.
I first heard “Ready My Heart” on Steve Bell’s CD Each Rare Momentover a decade ago. It’s been an integral part of my church’s Advent ever since. It is a unique Advent song, a devotional text in which we pray that our hearts would be prepared to cradle the coming Savior.
It was written by Lois Shuford in the late 70s. I’m not sure how Steve Bell found it, but it certainly wasn’t due to a promotional campaign on Shuford’s part–in email correspondence a while back, she just seemed pleased and maybe a little surprised that the song had taken on a life of its own.
Head over to gregscheer.com for resources for using “Ready My Heart” in your church. Shuford is not registered with CCLI and seems pleased to have churches sing the song as long as they attribute the song to her. If that changes, I’ll update the information here.
Update 12/29/21: Sheet music for this song is now available at gregscheer.com.
Here is a new song co-written by Isaac Watts and me.
My pastor, Jack Roeda, is preaching through Hebrews and pointed out the other day that there are few songs that use the image of Jesus as high priest. Shepherd, Bread of Life, yes, but not high priest. Even though I knew he was baiting me, I took the hook and went off to find some good high priest songs. I fell in love with this text by Isaac Watts and wrote a new tune for it.
On thing I’ve been thinking about a lot in my writing lately is the “Occam’s Razor” principle, which basically states that the simplest answer is likely the simplest answer. Another way to state it might be “don’t gild the lily” or Antoine de Saint Exupéry’s famous, “Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”
I’ve spent most of my life trying to master the intricacies of putting notes together, and now I’m realizing that sometimes music sounds best in its simplest forms. This doesn’t take less mastery, but more. In any case, I kept reminding myself of this while writing the tune for this song, and I think I was able to strip it back to an extremely simple, clear form that sings well. Listen to the way the volume of the singing increases on each verse–that is music to a composer’s ears!
You can download the leadsheet or the string parts at the link above. If you’re a worship nerd, you can hear some more highlights from yesterday’s service. If you’re a hymn nerd, you can visit Hymnary.org to see how Watts’ original text was broken into two modern hymn texts: Join All the Glorious Names and Jesus, My Great High Priest. (And how I chose from his 12 verses to come up with my 4 verses and a refrain.)
Just a quick post from yesterday’s service, featuring the inimitable Joyful Noise Orchestra. If you are not familiar with JNO, it’s an ensemble (collective? flash mob? uprising?) of musicians that span from age 12 to 72, from beginner to pro. We lead worship every few months at Church of the Servant, and when we do I try to write something special to show them off. This time it was a contrapuntal introduction to the hymn tune DARWALL, which you may know as “Rejoice the Lord Is King.” (We sang it with the text “Join All the Glorious Names.”) If you want to verify that we were mostly playing the right notes, you can take a look at the score: PDF. If you want to verify that JNO is the best looking band in the business, check out this picture from Thanksgiving 2014.
Church of the Servant’s Joyful Noise Orchestra, with Joel Klamer conducting
These two fine folks just celebrated their 50th birthday. Oh, to look so good at such an advanced age!
This bubbly little jazz tune actually started its life as “The Heineken Maneuver,” after a joke that emerged at a jazz cafe the Rienstra and Scheer families have been attending. Shortly after I finished it, Ron and Deb had their 50th birthday bash and I decided to rename it in honor of the event. It was premiered with their son Philip on alto sax.
So get out on the dance floor–you’re never too old for “The 50 Year Shuffle“!
Update 1/11/22: Sheet music for this tune is now available at gregscheer.com.
Now that my book is finished, I have a little more time for creative ventures. The first fruit of that time is a setting of Herman Stuempfle’s text “How Wide the Love of Christ!” I came across the text when searching Hymnary.org for hymns based on Ephesians 3:14-21. I was drawn to this one because it takes “the breadth and length and height and depth” and gives a verse to each word, followed by a doxology. I began with the intention of writing a big festive choral piece with brass, but it started morphing into a more intimate, jazzy setting–a very different feel, but I kind of like it.
Update 12/29/21: Sheet music for this song is now available at gregscheer.com.
A lot of music ministers lament the never-ending grind of planning worship services, week after week, without a break. Yeah, it’s easy to get a little jealous of school teachers with their summer breaks, but frankly I like the challenge each week brings. I enjoy digging into the service’s scriptures, teasing out themes in the music. I especially savor the search for settings of the lectionary Psalm that will fit both the congregation and the day’s music ensemble.*
Which brings us to today’s post. The lectionary called for Psalm 124 in yesterday’s service. You would think that Reformed folk would have lots of songs based on this one, because the Psalm includes the words that often begin Reformed worship: “Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth.”
Alas! There are a few songs based on those words, a few metrical Psalms, and my octavo for choir and narrator. But nothing that fit the Guitarchestra. So I wrote a new one to fit the occasion. The lyrics are below and the PDF leadsheet is downloadable on my website (see link above). In some ways this follows the lead of my recent setting of Psalm 137, using the basic themes and images of the Psalm as clay that is then molded into a somewhat different shape. Still faithful to the Psalm, but taking some creative license.
1. If God had not been on our side, When cornered by our foes;
When there was no place left to hide, To whom could we have gone?
If God had not been on our side, When anger flared like fire;
They would have swallowed us alive, If God had not been on our side.
2. If God had not been on our side, When troubles surged like floods;
We would have watched the water rise, And waves mount up like walls.
If God had not been on our side, We would have had no hope,
been swept away in deadly tides If God had not been on our side.
3. If God had not been on our side, When hunters laid their snares;
Their steely teeth would snap us tight, We wouldn’t have a prayer.
If God had not been on our side, We wouldn’t have escaped;
But our God made the earth and sky, our help is only in his name.
*I know this makes me sound super holy. Don’t feel bad. I get tired of the weekly grind, too.
You may know that I’m writing my second book. With a due date of October 5 (my birthday, in case you’re wondering), I’m spending long stretches of time alone, focused on writing and editing while everyone else frolics outside my window (metaphorically). It reminded me of a song I wrote in 1988 when I was two months into a year of study in Salzburg, Austria. “Heimweh” means “homesick” in German. It’s a song about being alone and far away, wondering how things are changing while you’re away. Writing a book feels a lot like that right about now.
It seems a dream; has it been days or years?
One day I’ll leave, and I’ll come back to you.
The song was recorded in 1993 on an album called “from the hand of…” The mixing leaves a lot to be desired, but the songs still hold up. I think you should listen to the whole album.
Update 3/12/22: Sheet music for this song is now available at gregscheer.com.
My final post from the 9/13/15 COS service is an oldie but goodie, “All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name.” A while back I wrote a “Haydnesque” string intro that proved to be a headache for many of our string players. But on this particular Sunday, the string quartet was made up of talented and eager college students, so I made them work a bit! (This is not to say that COS’s other string players are not talented, just not quite as eager.)
I’m a constant musical tinkerer, so I often take a previous idea and build on it, depending on what musicians I have available. On 9/13/15 at COS I had a fine string quartet, so I dug deep into my string archives and pulled out this little string arrangement of the Filipino song, “Father in Heaven.” It’s a lovely song that follows a Trinitarian pattern. Why don’t more people sing this song? Why?
One of my jobs as a music director is to put a multitude of music styles together in one service, then smooth the edges so that it feels natural.
This 9/13/15 medley begins with the choir singing Vivaldi’s “Gratias Agimus Tibi.” I wrote a short fugal transition between the Vivaldi and Thomas Ken’s “Doxology” that just makes me smile. The Doxology’s closing “amen” provides the opening chords of Ron Rienstra’s “The Lord Be with You” communion music. That’s who we roll at COS–a few centuries of music wrapped up in a 4 minute bon bon.
