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Church Congregational Songs

Lord God, Now Let Your Servants Depart in Peace

When Bruce Benedict sent out a call for communion songs, I had originally intended to write a whole set of songs that would work in communion and a communion liturgy. There lots of moments—“Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again,” for example—that are just begging to be sung. As I posted a few days ago, the main song I finished by the deadline was “O Lamb of God.” But I also completed a Nunc Dimittis: “Lord God, Now Let Your Servants Depart in Peace.” These words, said by Simeon upon seeing the child Jesus (Luke 2:29-32), were a profound response to answered prayer. They are also words that are appropriately sung by a congregation, who at the end of a worship service can proclaim that they have seen Jesus, the Light of the world.

As I told Bruce, of the two songs, I think the Nunc Dimittis is the stronger melody. It’s definitely the weaker recording. (I’ve grown to despise my own voice, and my piano playing is…wanting.) It’s also short enough that it could be awkward in a congregational setting, although it could work as a seasonal benediction song.

I offer it to you, my dear readers, for your evaluation: MP3, PDF.

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Church Congregational Songs Live Psalms

Psalm 134: Come, You People of the Lord

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 wasn’t 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)

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Congregational Songs

Food for the Soul

Bruce Benedict of Cardiphonia is at it again, this time with a flash mob of 30 songwriters gathering around the theme of the Lord’s Supper. The album is called “Songs for the Supper,” and it includes my new song, “O Lamb of God.”

I had planned to write a half dozen short communions songs in a Taizé-meets-praise-band style, but with a due date for a Psalm CD looming overhead, it just wasn’t possible. So I focused on finishing just this one song for Bruce’s project. This song is a setting of the traditional liturgical text, Agnus Dei. It is almost entirely call-and-response, which makes it easy to learn as the people can simply repeat the leader line by rote. In the case of this recording, I sing the leader’s role and Laura de Jong sang the people’s role. Thank you , Laura! It was nice to spend mixing time on someone else’s voice, because frankly, I’m sick of my own voice.

Though the song could go any number of directions stylistically, this version is pretty trippy, with lots of phasing and guitar noodling. Add a bit of backward piano and you simply can’t go wrong. Can you?

Both the MP3 and the PDF leadsheet are at the album’s Cardiphonia Bandcamp site. I’ll make a piano version available soon. The whole album is a free download, but you can donate a little something to stophungernow as your way of thanking all the people who took part. It’s liturgically appropriate to connect the Table with feeding the hungry (that’s how the New Testament church rolled), and it’s also a nice gesture at a time of the year when most of us sit down to overeat.

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Church Congregational Songs Demos Psalms Retuned hymn

Psalm 132: Arise, O King of Grace Arise

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.)

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Church Congregational Songs Contests Finale demo

A Gluttonous Feast of Rejection, Fourth Course

Update 3/22/22: Sheet music for this song is now available at gregscheer.com.

Our fourth course, a dessert of dismissal and dejection, is a tune for Stephen Starke’s text, “Jesus, Greatest at the Table.” This 8.7.8.7.8.7 Maundy Thursday text was the last one of the batch I wrote, and  at first I felt it was the weakest. It sounded too similar to a tune in Sing! A New Creation (I’ll never tell which one) and just wasn’t grabbing me. But this is was a situation in which experience and perseverance outweighed youthful enthusiasm and raw talent. I kept fussing with the draft over the course of a few days and now, though perhaps not the most beautiful belle at the ball, it is quite a pleasant, singable tune.

Pleasant and singable, or just a really nice personality? You be the beholder: MP3.

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Church Congregational Songs Contests Demos Finale demo

A Gluttonous Feast of Rejection, Third Course

Our third course of anticipated rejection is a new tune for “Blest are the Innocents” by Sylvia Dunstan. This text is about the Slaughter of the Innocents, when Herod killed every male under two in the hopes of killing Jesus, the prophesied King. So it’s no upbeat ditty, to be sure.

According to an article in Reformed Worship, Dunstan wrote the text with the 10.10.10.10 tune  SLANE (“Be Thou My Vision”) in mind. The editors of Reformed Worship, who are also the editors of Faith Alive’s new hymnal, feel that SLANE’s positive associations will be in tension with the grim subject matter of the text. In the RW article they suggested using SLANE in a minor key arrangement.

I stayed pretty close to SLANE in my new tune. It’s in C minor, which is the relative minor key to SLANE’s Eb major. It has four phrases in 3/4 time that unfold similarly to SLANE. It’s mostly pentatonic, which is what gives SLANE its folk flavor. The main difference is that I never let my melody peak on the high Eb in the third phrase. This might sound like a small deal, but pentatonic melodies are all about the shape of the line. Letting a melody slowly blossom to the highest note of the scale is a way of really making a melody soar. (Keith Getty, I know what you’re doing.) I decided that for a text of this nature, never quite reaching the melodic goal would convey the brokenness of the subject matter. It’s a subtle touch, but I think it works.

You be the judge: MP3, PDF

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Church Congregational Songs Contests Demos

A Gluttonous Feast of Rejection, Second Course

My second bid for rejection starts with a text by Brian Wren, “We Are Your People.” It’s dense enough of a text that something too groovy wouldn’t fit it comfortably. On the other hand, there’s always a need for tunes that bridge the gap between straight-laced hymn and rockin’ praise tune. What I came up with is chordal enough for a guitarist or even worship band to play, but also even enough that it could be led effectively at the organ. (“Gather Us In,” anyone?)

I like that the tune is more or less modal, yet keeps sliding out of the mode’s center. (You can cast your vote in the comment section as to what key you think the song is in.) What holds things together are the strong sequences that follow a subtle inner logic. They guide your voice to the next pitch even when you don’t understand why. Listen or look and let me know what you think.

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Church Congregational Songs Contests Demos

A Gluttonous Feast of Rejection, First Course

Why am I like this? I’ve been rejected by Faith Alive more times than a bacon salesman at a vegetarian convention, but here I am submitting four more songs to them. It started with an email that read:

Calling all composers, Work continues on the upcoming hymnal Lift Up Your Hearts: Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs to be published by Faith Alive Christian Resources in 2013.  As we finish making our selections we noted a couple of texts that we would like to find new tunes for.

The first text listed is “As In that Upper Room You Left Your Seat” by Timothy Dudley-Smith. The meter is 10.10.10.10, which makes the poetic lines long enough that the syllabic stress can be all over the place. The trick is to write music that is fluid enough to accomodate changes in text stress between verses, but not so much that things turn to mush. So I wrote a melody that focuses on the arc of each phrase, and doesn’t worry too much about meter. In fact, I don’t show any time signatures and I’m thinking very seriously about taking out the bar lines.

Take a look (PDF) or listen (MP3), then give the folks at Faith Alive a call and tell them that their hymnal will be nothing without this tune. But still, I fully expect it to be rejected.

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Arrangement Choir Church Live

Heinz Chapel Choir sings “Lo, How a Rose”

Back when I was doing my masters at the University of Pittsburgh I studied conducting with John Goldsmith, the director of the Heinz Chapel Choir. Besides being a great singer, scholar and teacher, he was kind enough to try out my arrangement of “Lo, How a Rose.” He must have liked it, because 20 years later he included it on the Heinz Chapel Choir’s new CD, “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.”

Nothing John does is half-baked. This recording is no exception: MP3.

If you like what you hear, why don’t you head on over to www.gregscheer.com where you’ll find the full arrangement. It can be sung a cappella, with piano, or even with string orchestra. And for $15 for your whole choir, you can’t go wrong.

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Art Music Live

Tavala

Just in time for Halloween, here’s some scary monster music. Even scarier than the music itself is the story behind the music:

When I arrived at the University of Pittsburgh, I had already spent four years experimenting with a variety of compositional techniques–12 tone, aleatoric, set theory–and I thought I was ready to “find my voice.” My comp teacher felt the same way. But when I brought some drafts to my first lesson he played through them and told me, “these could be really great as, like, comic relief to something more substantial.” Little did he know, these were my actual ideas.

In any case, I knew it was going to be a long semester, grad program, and possibly life. I realized that nothing but the most off-the-wall musical offerings would satisfy this particular prof, so I invented a non-repeating scale and wrote a page or two of uninspired, non-committal, but forward-thinking music each week before my lesson.

He loved it.

However, the ensemble that was contracted to perform the piece at the end of the semester was not as convinced. The percussion player said “I don’t want to embarrass myself,” and the flutist, who was Amy Phillips-soon-to-be-Scheer’s teacher said, “Greg needs to learn to write for the flute.”

However, the following year an ensemble, led by Rachel Rudich, read the piece beautifully. The result is Tavala, MP3.

By the way, “Tavala” is a word that came to me while I was sleeping. Little did I know it was a Polynesian island.