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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.

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Art Music Live

Inventions for Orchestra, movt 3

The third movement of Inventions for Orchestra is less subtle than the first two. It’s an all out assault in 10/8 time. While I like the visceral excitement of this final movement and the way it churns through various harmonic regions, it bears an uncomfortable resemblance to the Hawaii Five-O theme. There I’ve said it.

Sadly, that momentary similarity may doom the entire composition for ever. But I’ll let you decide: Inv for Orch, movt 3, MP3.

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Art Music Live

Inventions for Orchestra, movt 2

Inventions for Orchestra, movement 2, began its life as a song called “Raining in Pittsburgh.” One day I’ll record that wistful take off on Bruce Cockburn’s “Thoughts on a Rainy Afternoon.” But in this case, its ever ascending chord sequence became the basis for an orchestral passacaglia: Inv for Orch, movt 2, MP3.

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Art Music Live

Inventions for Orchestra, movt 1

I’m slowly trying to digitize my collection of cassette recordings. Here is the first fruit:

For a long time I’ve been obsessed with M.C. Escher. My question has always been, “what would Escher have created were he a musician?” Well, he would have been J.S. Bach, of course. But what would Escher/Bach have created today, specifically if they were me?

I set about answering that question with a year of counterpoint lessons in 1993 and lots of piano sketches. Three of those sketches became Inventions for Orchestra. Movement #1 begins with the marking “Haydnesque,” but it soon morphs into something entirely different. And that’s the point. It continues to morph–like a fugue, but a fugue adrift at sea.

Special thanks to Roger Zahab for having the vision and fortitude (and lack of discretion?) to program music by unknown composers before it has even been composed.

Inventions for Orchestra, movt 1 (MP3)

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Art Music Demos Live

Budapest

Having just returned from two weeks in Ukraine, with flight arrival and departure from Budapest, Hungary, I thought it would be appropriate to post a recording of a composition inspired by my last visit to Budapest.

This is a demo of the University of Pittsburgh Jazz Band playing “Budapest.” The song comes from a set of songs called the European Suite, which I wrote after returning from a year in Salzburg and vicinity in 1989. The following year I scored the movement “Budapest” for a jazz arranging class.

I would be entirely willing to score the entire set of songs for jazz band. (Yes, jazz band directors, that’s a hint.) Until that time, you’ll need to satisfy your European cravings with this aural bon bon: Budapest MP3.