The Musical Diary of Greg Scheer
If I remember correctly, movement 2 of the Brass Quintet was the first movement I composed. It may have started as a piano piece and then morphed into a brass piece by necessity (i.e. the clock was ticking on a semester project), but it’s all a dim memory now.
By the way, did I tell you that it won an award? The piece was chosen to be played at the University of New Hampshire’s Horn Festival. That may seem awfully…narrow, but it was a pretty big deal to an undergraduate composer.
This was one of the first serious pieces I composed–multi-movement, multi-instrument, boring title–it had it all. Here’s movement #1, which is, more or less, a prelude and fugue.
I used to listen to a lot of great folk and Celtic shows on the incredible WRIU. Come to think of it, many of my most memorable and formative music listening experiences centered around this station–post-punk under my pillow, afternoons getting schooled in the hip hop that was at that point completely under the radar, and eventually doing a little DJing at the station.
But I digress.
“The Halls of the Heart” is a traditional ballad–a story of love and loss in a village by the sea. Not my typical style at the time–or even now–but it has a certain charm, don’t you think? By the way, the chorus is taken from Phantastes by George MacDonald. If you haven’t read it and Lillith, do yourself a favor and read them.
I was quite the musical entrepreneur, even in my college days. While an undergrad, I decided that I needed to compose something for a large ensemble, so I simply went to the conductor of the URI wind ensemble, Gene Pollart, and asked if he’d program something if I wrote it. He said Yes. Little did I realize what an unusual opportunity this was. (Thank you, Dr. Pollart!) The result was “Crying Bone,” a tone poem loosely based on the story some friends told me about their young daughter, who kept inexplicably bursting into tears. At their wits ends, they enlisted their other daughter in trying to find out what was going on. Eventually, she confided to her sister that “she had a crying bone (pointing to her ribs), and she couldn’t turn it off.”
It starts very quietly, so stick with it and don’t turn up the volume too high, because it will get a lot louder!
I told you I was going to air some dirty laundry. Here it is: an early iteration of The Choir of Gregs. In this instance, we’re singing a song that I assume is called “Grace.” We sang it before every meal at Camp-of-the-Woods, where I worked for three summers. At some point, I wrote a barbershop arrangement of it for some of the male waiters to sing, and I later recorded it on my little Fostex four track cassette recorder.
I’ve already told you about my brush with fame via a big city (Boston) concert promoter, and my complete miscalculation of what he would want to hear. Here’s the other demo I made at that time: Trying to Get Back to You.
In 1998, I was at URI, studying with the quirky, yet incredible Dr. Geoffrey Gibbs, when I wrote a two movement string quartet entitled “The.” Why did I give it this title? Because it seemed like a fun idea to make it difficult to catalog.
Even though it’s a frigid, blustery evening in Grand Rapids, I hereby declare it Spring. So let the spring cleaning commence! Over the next month I will clean out my musical cupboards–perhaps even air some dirty audio laundry–in order to make room for exciting new projects that are currently in the works. You will hear recordings that span some 25 years, in styles ranging from high brow art music to juvenile rock and roll.
Let’s begin with the juvenile rock and roll. “Don’t Go Away” was written my sophomore year of college, and remained one of my hits for another decade. (By “hit,” I mean I played it multiple times, once or twice at people’s request.) People are often surprised when I tell them that rap has had a huge influence on me, but this is proof positive that it’s in my blood. Then hacks like Jason Mraz come along 2 decades later and act like they invented acoustic rock rap. Listen and weep, Jason.
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.
Update: Sheet music for this song is now available at gregscheer.com.
A while back, I was looking for a musical setting of Psalm 125 to fit with our church’s series on the Psalms of Ascent. Like any good researcher, I went to YouTube. There, I found a video of two Brazilians playing a song called Proteção. I had no context for the music, but I couldn’t get the song out of my mind.
A little poking around brought me to a treasure trove of newly composed songs in Portuguese, written primarily by Rubem Amorese, but often co-written with others, most notably the other man in the video, Toninho Zemuner. Toninho has also recorded many of these songs. The man has golden ears and works with extremely talented musicians! You can hear the studio recording of Proteção at Amorese’s website or at their church’s website.
I wasn’t able to finish a translation in time for the sermon series that first led me to the song, but recently returned to it. A few days ago I completed a translation and piano score, and yesterday recorded a demo.
I hope to work with more of these songs in the future, and have been dropping hints at the CICW that a trip to Brazil would be an appropriate–no, necessary–part of my work. For now I’ll have to settle for this being a long distance collaboration, bringing more of Rubem’s songs to English speakers and making my presence in Brazil felt only through “Povo do senhor,” the Portuguese translation of my song “People of the Lord.”