Categories
Demos

Dance!

My wife told me that my music blog is boring. Well, she didn’t say boring, but she thought it would be more interesting if I included more personal stuff to make things more…bloggish. When I get a little time I intend to record more songs for the blog, but for now I have to work with what I have.

And what do I have?

For now what I have is a demo of a song I co-wrote with Jackie Worth, called Dance!. Jackie had already placed some songs with a teenage girl group called The Gemz and heard that they were looking for new material. There’s nothing I love more than a compositional challenge, so I got to work. It wasn’t long before I realized that I was not going to be able to write convincing lyrics from the point of view of a teen girl, so Jackie bailed me out. The result is this demo.

The sad conclusion to this story is that The Gemz didn’t end up using the song. So if any of you have any leads with other girl groups, feel free to tell them about “Dance!”

Having trouble with the above link? Try this: Dance!

Categories
Colin Finale demo

Three More with Colin

I just finished three new songs in collaboration with Colin Gordon-Farleigh before leaving for a weekend in Indianapolis. You want to hear them? You want to see them? You’re in luck! They’re below.

Starting Over (mp3)

Starting Over (pdf)

He Is Always with Me (mp3)

He Is Always with Me (pdf)

Triumph (mp3)

Triumph (pdf)

Categories
Choir Church Live

Feed Us, Lord

This Sunday the choir sang “Feed Us, Lord” (see Feb 2 post) at Church of the Servant. Here’s a recording, complete with babies crying.

Categories
Colin Finale demo

When I’m with You

The songwriting collaboration between Colin and me continues to go well. A while back he sent me his first non-worship lyric–a love song. I thought it would be appropriate to compose music for it on Valentine’s Day. Take a look: When I’m with You, pdf or a listen: When I’m with You, mp3

Categories
Choir Church Finale demo

Feed Us, Lord

Brand-spanking new (as of 2 mintues ago), here’s a communion anthem for SATB choir and piano. As usual, I have virtually guaranteed that it won’t be published by composing a simple anthem with an unusually difficult piano part.

There’s a story about Beethoven in which he turns to a violinist who is complaining about some fingerings and he says, “Do you think I worry about fingering when the muse strikes me?” I wouldn’t go that far, but I think there’s certainly some room to challenge the church pianist a bit. Let me know if I’m being unreasonably cruel to the pianist in this piece. Come to think of it, we’re doing this song at COS on February 11, so I’ll let you know if I have a pianist mutiny.
Feed Us, Lord (pdf)
Feed Us, Lord (mp3)

Categories
Colin Finale demo

Bells Are Ringing!

Easter isn’t all that far off. Here’s a new (as of 5 minutes ago) song co-written by Colin Gordon-Farleigh:
Bells Are Ringing! (pdf)

Bells Are Ringing! (mp3 generated by Finale)

Categories
Choir Live

New recordings from Canada

Richard Janzen (www.musicshare.sk.ca) just sent me recordings from his Christmas concert, which included two of my choral pieces. Richard directs the Rosthern Junior College choirs in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. RJC is an independent Mennonite church high school (grades 10-12). His 35 voice choral sang Lo, How A Rose, and the 100 voice concert choir (which he lovingly refers to as his “mob” choir) sang We Three Kings. Listen to the recordings, then head on over and download the pieces from www.gregscheer.com so you, too, can pay a mere $30 for 135 octavos.

Categories
Live

Three Rivers Overture

In 1996 I was asked by Roger Zahab–new music’s greatest friend–to compose a piece for the University of Pittsburgh Orchestra. The result was The Three Rivers Overture. After its spring premiere, Roger decided it would make a good piece for Pitt’s graduation. In fact, he used it for a number of years after that–maybe even still uses it.

Here’s a funny anecdote about money and music. At my graduation from Pitt, I got paid to play my bass in the orchestra, got paid to hire other musicians to fill out some sections, and got royalties on The Three Rivers Overture. The latter was the greatest source of revenue, because BMI calculates royalties based on number of instruments (full orch), length of piece (over 6 minutes) and number of people in audience (about 20,000). I was very pleased when I opened up my BMI check that year. The sad thing is that BMI changed their rules, so they no longer pay royalties on events–only concerts. So my source of easy money dried up…

The good news is that a new piece was born, even though it’s no longer a money maker.

The Three Rivers Overture, mp3 (performed by the Pitt orchestra)

The Three Rivers Overture, pdf

Categories
Colin Finale demo

Let’s Stand Together

In October I got an email from out of the blue from a minister in the UK who was interested in having me set some of his hymns to music. Colin Gordon-Farleigh and I have been collaborating ever since. Today I finished our 10th song. It’s called “Let’s Stand Together.” Colin has given me permission to post our songs here at my music blog, so I thought I’d go ahead and start with the newest one. As usual, you have your choice: listen to the mp3 of the cheesy Finale playback, or print it out and play it yourself.

Categories
Contests Finale demo

Grace Through Every Generation

I’ve mentioned elsewhere about the CRC sesquicentennial (that’s 150, for those of you who are counting) hymn contest I entered a while back. I submitted three songs–one for each of the sesquicentennial theme scriptures–and got runner up for one of them. The winning hymn text was written by my CICW colleague Bert Polman. The text will be introduced to the denomination using the tune NETTLETON (“Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing”). That’s a good tune choice in that it’s familiar (and a great tune), but I felt like it needed something special, so I wrote one:
Grace Through Every Generation (mp3)
Grace Through Every Generation (printed music)