The Musical Diary of Greg ScheerScheer Doxology
A long time ago–1992 to be exact–I wrote a new setting of Thomas Ken’s Doxology. It was part of The Belliefield Liturgy, five songs for two-part choir that fit Bellefield Presbyterian’s (Pittsburgh) worship service. COS’s Guitarchestra is going to use this song in the near future, so I thought I’d revise it and make the piano accompaniment available to you, my loyal readers.
Finalified MP3, Greg and guitar MP3, Voice/Piano PDF, SATB/Piano PDF
I feel bad that I haven’t updated my blog in over a week. On the other hand, my last post was the day before Palm Sunday, and you can’t really blame a church musician for blogging less during Holy Week. Though I’m not working on any big projects, my production hasn’t completely stalled. Over the next few days I’ll post some odds and ends from the last week. Here’s the first:
String arrangement of Michael Joncas’ Psalm 118/This Is the Day. (MP3)
Every Easter the lectionary calls for Psalm 118 as the Psalm of the day. As always, I try to find just the right setting for the musicians I have. In the past I’ve done Psalm 118s by Taize (this year’s plan B), Patrick Geary (exciting, but I’ve done it too much recently), Lawler/Guiao (needs 2 trumpets; I had strings), and me (too hard). I came across Joncas’ bouncy “This Is the Day” and decided to give it a try. Since I had string ensemble available, I wrote a quick arrangement that had a number of options I could use on the fly. During the Easter rehearsal, we decided that recorder melody against pizzacato string accompaniment would make a great intro. The strings come back again on each congregational refrain with descant.
In a previous post, I tantalized you with the premiere date of The God of Abraham Praise. That date has come and gone, and now I’m pleased to present you with a recording from the event. Without further ado, I give you the Calvin College Orchestra playing The God of Abraham Praise.
I’ve written before about my love of the hymn What Wondrous Love Is This. That previous post included a stripped down recording of me singing the song, accompanied by guitar. This time I’m posting a more complex arrangement for piano. We used it last Sunday at COS as an accompaniment for congregational singing. After seeing how hard my pianist had to work (and hearing how sick of hearing it his wife became) and experiencing the difficulty the congregation had finding their note into the last verse, I think I may recast this as an instrumental anthem for piano and treble instrument. But I’ll let you be the judge. The piano is quite light in the recording, so you may want to look at the PDF while listening to the MP3.
When the cat’s away, they say, the mice will play. That was certainly the case last weekend when Amy was at a conference in South Carolina, leaving her boys to their own devices. I had just completed music that I had hoped would be chosen for a movie about a scary clown. (Rejected.) “What am I going to do with scary clown music?” I pondered. Then I hatched a plan to cast Theo as “Creepy the Clown,” chasing himself and Simon around our house and yard. Usually it’s hard to get them to cooperate with an elaborate plan like this, but since the grueling filming schedule for this movie included instructions like “play with Legos” and “run around the yard screaming,” they seemed to do okay. The results, in a subjective estimation of my own progeny, are priceless. Click through to YouTube, or watch it below:
Update: For sheet music or to adopt this tune, head over to gregscheer.com.
Have you ever tried to find a good Lent hymn? That is, a hymn about the season of Lent? There are not many, and they are not very good. My favorite is James Gertmenian’s text “Thoughout These Lenten Days,” which is paired with TALLIS CANON in Sing! A New Creation. I love the Tallis tune–I even was in a rock group named after it–but it felt too static for the movement that takes place in the six verses of Gertmenian’s text. So I wrote this sweeping melody that is reminescent of English cathedral melodies such as KING’S WESTON. One of my choir members liked the tune so much that he took to calling me “maestro” ever since he sang it. Because the tune earned me that title, I thought it would be an appropriate title for the tune as well. You can download a PDF of the tune MAESTRO at gregscheer.com or hear how we used the song in Sunday’s worship service at COS (MP3).
Today’s post features four gospels–no, not Matthew, Mark, Luke and John–the gospel according to Colin and Greg. That is, four gospel songs I wrote to lyrics by Colin Gordon-Farleigh. Since Colin works with both country gospel and black gospel singers, he wanted music that could swing either way. Wanna get your praise on? Check ’em out:
Update 3/16/22: Sheet music for this song is now available at gregscheer.com.
Starting to do your Palm Sunday planning? Think about using this song I wrote for last year’s Palm Sunday service. The tune is the Jewish tune associated with “The King of Glory Comes,” but the text is brand new.
I kept wanting to use “The King of Glory Comes” on Palm Sunday, because the mood is right and it’s in the ballpark thematically. However, the verses of Jabusch’s text don’t fit. What I really needed was something I could use during our Palm Sunday procession. So I wrote one that captured the “Hosanna in the highest!” of the crowd in the refrain, and some of the associated Old Testament scriptures (Ps 24, Is 40) and narrative subtext in the verses.
You can almost imagine Jesus coming closer as the song progresses: The verses begin with prophecies of the Messiah with which the crowd would have been familiar. Everything is pomp and circumstance until Jesus comes into view, at which point there’s some head scratching–what kind of King rides a donkey? Verse 5 includes what is missing from many Palm Sunday songs–a foreshadowing of what was to come. By verse 6, the crowd does what crowds do, and the people are back to their festivities.
Here is the MP3. If you ask nicely I can send you string parts, and perhaps by the end of the week some brass parts.
Last night I had a rehearsal with The Choral Scholars. (You’ll remember TCS from our CD Global Songs for Worship.) We sang through 20 songs, the first of many marathon sessions coming throughout the spring and summer. All of this work will result in a CD of Psalms that will be released in conjunction with the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship‘s new Psalm collection.
I’m pretty excited about this. As you can hear from this rough recording of the rehearsal, TCS sounds great even when they’re sight reading. And they’re fun to work with, too! Pique your interest in the project by taking a listen to my arrangement of Bruce Benedict‘s Thou God of Love (Psalm 120).