The Musical Diary of Greg ScheerI was reading Bruce Benedict’s very excellent Cardophonia blog today, and he had a post with four different musical renditions of Isaac Watt’s text “Alas! And Did My Savior Bleed.” That reminded me that I have never uploaded my choral version of that text, which uses the tune MARTYRDOM. Just in time for Holy Week, here’s the PDF and MP3.
As any loyal follower of this blog knows, I have an interest in song contests that borders on the obsessive. I’m drawn to them like a moth to the flame, and my latest flame is Astoria, Oregon.
Astoria is celebrating its 200th birthday and they advertised a song contest as part of the festivities. I’ve never been to the town, but an afternoon of research reveals that it’s quite a charming place with a colorful history. Did you know that Lewis and Clark spent a winter there? That it was the first major outpost of the Northwest? That Goonies, Kindergarten Cop and Free Willy were all filmed there? I tried to pack my new found knowledge into a song the town could call their own.
The fruit of my labor is a song named after their bicentennial theme, “Astoria: An Adventure in History.” Take a look at the PDF or listen to an MP3 demo sung by the Greg Quartet.
Update 10/6/20: Sheet music for this song can be downloaded here.
Tonight at COS we’re throwing a big Lent party we call Ash Wednesday. (Not really, it’s just Ash Wednesday service.) As I chose music for the end of the service, I wanted to find music that was somewhat unobtrusive so that people could focus on the ashes and silent reflection. The song that came to mind is my setting of Psalm 40, “Patiently.” It’s one I’ve never used in a service before because it’s so long. But for music to accompany reflection its lengthy dialogue of verses and refrain fits perfectly. So come to the service tonight to hear it in context. To prepare your heart, sit at the piano with the music (see link above) or listen to the MP3.
After a ripe hiatus, I just finished another song with Colin Gordon-Farleigh. Though I was mainly a trombone player in high school, I learned just enough trumpet and tuba to make myself dangerous. You can experience the danger in this rough demo of Dreaming. If you don’t have the guts to experience the raw trumpet power, you can take the easy route and simply look at the music: PDF.
For me, the Calvin Worship Symposium starts with a rehearsal Wednesday night and a worship service Thursday morning. The problem is that I’ve got everything ready to go and now have a full day stretching before me with none of the frantic preparations that have occupied the last month. Yes, there are lots of things I could–maybe even should–be doing. But I decided that it should be fun day. I was going to write a mass for the NPM mass contest, but the chances of me actually finishing that by Sunday are slim. So instead, I turned my attention to the FramesDirect.com Robot Dance Contest. I mean, being a fan of Kraftwerk, how could I resist?
Listen to an MP3 of my Robot Dance Music. I think you’ll agree that it’s chock full of vocoded goodness.
The employees of FramesDirect will make a video of themselves dancing to the winning entry. I’m about to post my entry to their FaceBook page. It would be great if you’d head over there and put in a kind word for my entry.
But wait. There’s more! I’ve decided to make a little contest of my own: The Greg Scheer Dance Like a Robot Video Contest. The rules are simple. You upload a link to a video of you (your family, your Legos, your pet cockroaches, etc) dancing to the above song. A panel of one (me) will judge the best video and send the winner a prize. For those of you who are serious about quality (and you’d better be if you want to make any headway in this contest) you can download an AIF file of the song.
Good luck to all. And may the best robot win!
I’ve been composing a new setting of Psalm 29, and decided that I’d create a video of the process. “Oh boy,” you say. “That sounds exciting.” Indeed.
My compositional conundrum is that I have three different versions of the same song, and there are pros and cons to each version. I’m hoping you will listen to the MP3 (version 3) or download the PDF of version 1, version 2, or version 3 and give me some help. What is the best version of the song? Are there parts that you would change or different versions that you would combine? Maybe I should scrap the song entirely?
Feel free to leave your editorial suggestions here or at YouTube. Heck, maybe some of you will want to sing and play your ideas in a video response at YouTube. Have at it people–this is your chance to co-write a song with Greg!
Watch the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRvsPz-pL2o
At this year’s Calvin Worship Symposium, I’m planning music for a service that uses the story of Cain and Abel as the sermon scripture. As you can imagine there are a TON of congregational songs about that one…
Neal Plantinga is preaching, and described his sermon as exploring the mark of Cain as punishment and protection. Cain’s “mark of grace” is a foreshadowing of Christ on the cross–the ultimate punishment that leads to the greatest blessing. Though I found a few hymns that got in the ballpark of the sermon theme (“God of Grace and God of Glory” and “Praise, My Soul, the King of Heaven”), I decided I’d give a go at writing one especially for the occasion.
The result is the appropriately titled “A Mark of Grace.” Check out the PDF score and Finalified MP3. This is still a working draft, but I decided to post it to my music blog so I wouldn’t ruin my Christmas thinking about it. This has been one of the more difficult things I’ve written in a while. In the first draft, the lyrics got the point across, but were too informational. That is, I fit in all the right words, but singing a list of characters from Genesis is not particularly inspirational. Plus, my verses were too long, so it felt tiresome.* In my second draft, I struck upon the idea of taking the original 16 line verses and trimming them to 8 lines of verse and 4 lines of pre-chorus. The pre-chorus provided a musical ramp between the verse and chorus that felt just right. But still, the rhyme scheme was so tight and the theological ideas so expansive that I had very little wiggle room with the lyrics. By draft #3 (this one) I felt like things had started to settle in lyrically and musically, though I’m thinking seriously of changing to 4/4 time throughout the whole song.
I think it’s best that I sit on it for a few days to see how it feels with a little distance. Feel free to give me feedback.
* But I kind of liked this section of the first draft:
Like Adam in the garden
Like Eve eating the fruit
Our family tree grows crooked
Its poisoned at the root.
Sunday evening was Church of the Servant’s Lessons & Carols service. As always, it was the highlight of Advent and Christmas for me. The highlight for me from a compositional standpoint, was that after 12 years I finally got a good recording of “My Soul Will Magnify the Lord.” Take a listen and you’ll figure out why it hasn’t been performed or published much. It’s hard.
Also included were my arrangements of “On Jordan’s Banks (PUER NOBIS),” “All Earth Is Waiting,” and “Go Tell It on the Mountain.” Check them out at http://www.churchoftheservantcrc.org/2009-lessons-carols.
Update: Sheet music for this arrangement is now available at gregscheer.com.
I’ve got lots to do for Sunday’s Lessons & Carols service at Church of the Servant (6pm, if you’re interested), but true to form I feel the compulsion to add one more thing to my to do list: write a last minute arrangement. Here’s a simple arrangement of “Go Tell It on the Mountain” for strings, brass and piano. Nothing too fancy, but if you’re using the song in one of your Christmas services and you happen to have brass, strings and rhythm section available, this should do the trick. Listen to the MP3.
The great Advent hymn “Savior of the Nations, Come” has been on my mind a lot this week, no doubt in part because of Bruce Benedict’s excellent rendition. As I planned for next week’s service, I knew the Joyful Noise Orchestra would sound great playing it. I wanted to give the more experienced players a little something to sink their teeth into, so I channeled Bach (Bach on a very bad day, that is) and came up with a short fugal introduction for the hymn. Check out the PDF or MP3.