The Musical Diary of Greg ScheerColin Gordon-Farleigh has his fingers in many musical pies. His latest venture is a country project with my old friend Charlotte Kerce. And what’s a country project without country songs? Nothing! So, my faithful RSS feed friend, Colin wrote a four new lyrics and I set them to music and recorded them. You can download the MP3 demos or PDF leadsheets below:
I’m always inspired by a challenge. My latest compositional challenge has come in the form of my good friend’s wife’s cousin, Morgan Bracy. (It’s all about who you know…) Morgan is a fantastic singer working in Nashville who I met a few months back. We decided to write some songs together, and the first fruit of our labor is “Tight Rope.” She wrote the lyrics a while back and I wrote the first draft of the music while in Singapore. Last week I recorded a rough demo of the song. The demo is ugly, but the melody is catchy.
Update: For sheet music or to adopt this tune, head over to gregscheer.com.
My friend David Landegent has written many hymn texts, most recently concentrating on scripture-based texts. One of his recent texts, “Sufferings of Jesus” is based on 2 Cor. 1:3-11. He wrote it with the tune ASSURANCE (Blessed Assurance) in mind, but I felt that tune was too sprightly to encompass the themes of suffering and consolation found in his text. And you know what Greg does when he thinks a tune is too this or that for a given text, right? He composes a new one. Here’s an MP3 of the new tune, appropriately–if obscurely–named GESCHICHTE.
In a past post you read the story and heard a solo version of my 1986 song “55 Feet.” I recently entered a fuller version of the song in the National Speleological Society Cave Ballad contest. (Yes, there is such a society, and such a contest.) I just got word that I won 3rd place. The judges felt it was “good but grimness detracts from appeal.” You can listen to it in all its grimness here.
I think of this as a work in progress. In this particular case, the progress started over 20 years ago. (Yikes. Am I really that old? No wonder I’m having a mid-life crisis.) This is just a rough mix. Stay tuned for a full CD of this and other musical tales of the depraved human nature–including my own.
By the way, special note to the judges and my wife–I know that one’s sweat can’t drop to the floor when one is 55 feet underwater. That’s because the narrator is no longer underwater when he’s telling the story. However, I don’t feel at liberty to say where the narrator is or what he’s about to do, because that would be far too grim.
Update 10/1/20: Sheet music for “A City on a Hill” can be downloaded here.
I just got back from Berlin, and one of the highlights was… the Berlin Wall? Kurfürstendamm? Die französische Kirche? Nein, meine liebe Damen und Herren. MC Xander. That’s right. I saw MC Xander on Alexander Platz, and I was so impressed that I made a point of seeing him two more times before the day ended.
Of course, I was forging a path for MC Xander back when he was in diapers, when I recorded Was Habe Ich Gemacht. But it reminded me of another vocally-driven song I recorded about ten years ago: A City on a Hill. It’s a little tame in comparison, and frankly MC Xander is way better than me, but I think this song deserves a good listen on headphones.
When I was in Uganda I was doodling on the guitar one day and I came up with a cool little guitar riff. Somehow it seemed to match up in my mind with the hymn text “There’s a Wideness in God’s Mercy.” Like all promising musical ideas that come to me, it kept playing in my head and I kept fussing with it on paper. But then it just got too fussy. I was over thinking it until all its charm was gone. So I decided to take a break from looking at it on paper and just get back to how the started–with me doodling on guitar. Over the last few days I’ve just been playing with it and now I feel like it’s once again becoming that simple, charming song that I met in Uganda. Here’s me playing it straight into the mic on my MacBook Pro: There’s a Wideness in God’s Mercy MP3.
My wife’s friend Paula is the founder of Mind the Gap Theatre Company in NYC. Recently she sent out a call for “a sexy cool jingle/ tagline” for their new podcast. How could I resist? After all, I’ve written marches, fight songs, faux soap commercials, VBS theme music and pop songs for girl groups–how could I say no to a sexy cool jingle?
I’ve been working on the Hymnary.org for a few years now, and I decided it was about time that it had some theme music. Since it’s a database of all kinds of congregational songs, I thought it would be appropriate to compose a brisk and whimsical romp through hymnological history. Take a listen to the Church of the Servant choir and me singing The Hymnary Theme Music.
Back when I lived in Pittsburgh, I played out quite a bit with a trio consisting of Elizabeth Way on violin, Eric Emmons on acoustic guitar and me on vocals and string bass. One summer I recorded an album of these songs called from the hand of on a four track cassette. (On this particular recording I replaced Eric on guitar for logistical reasons–if Eric had played on the recording it would have sounded a lot better!) One of the hits from that recording–if a cassette that sold 200 copies can have a hit–is “The Deeper You Get.”
Colin Gordon-Farleigh has been working with a new singer, Lisa Winwood, who needs a new batch of songs that will fit her soulful voice. Here’s the first. I took a little different approach this time. Instead of writing a piano score and having Finale play it back, I wrote a lead sheet and recorded a rough demo of the song.