We are having a joint Palm Sunday mass for the parish so there will be no Vigil mass at which I usually play. I will therefore join in with the other music groups.
I have cribbed music selections from a past liturgy at St Peters, Rochedale, so many thanks to them.
I don’t think I’ve done justice to the late James Maher msc on this blog. I did see him play at one of the AOV conferences and he was most impressive. This article has some of his background. I’ve done the couple of his songs that are in AOV NG, but without any collections available I have not looked at his other songs. Monica O’Brien’s recent newsletter of contemporary and uptempo songs included this great song of his.
This would be a fine replacement if all your “seed” songs are are bit tired. It’s a good chance to follow his lead and go a capella once the refrain is established.
The sheet music can be purchased at Willow, where there is a snippet to which to listen.
I couldn’t work this one out so I bought the sheet music to make a backing.
Chorus 1
It is your joy and your glory that we are fully alive.
And our joy to know you, to behold you, and in your love to thrive.
The seed of faith you’ve sown within our hearts
Can grow in to the strongest tree, to shelter us in any storm.
Can bring a harvest hundredfold and we thrive.
Fully alive. Fully alive.
Verse
You came that we’d have life to the full
That we’d welcome your Good News and let it grow in good soil.
You’ve spoken in our hearts a word of love,
That the cares of all the world, the false burdens that we bear,
Will not prevail and will not hide our light.
Chorus 2
It is your joy and your glory that we are fully alive.
And our joy to know you, to behold you, and in your love to thrive.
It is your joy and your glory that we are fully alive.
And our joy to know you, to behold you, and in your love to thrive.
The seed of faith you’ve sown within our hearts
Can grow in to the strongest tree, to shelter us in any storm.
Can bring a harvest hundredfold and we thrive.
Fully alive. Fully alive. Fully alive.
It is your joy and your glory that we are fully alive.
This was another of the uptempo songs Monica O’Brien suggested in a recent newsletter. It is in As One Voice for Kids but can also be purchased separately as sheet music. It has words by Maria Millward and the music is by Damian Halloran.
It’s is an energetic song with a message for all, not just children.
My backing is approximate:
Do to others as you would have them do to you.
Say to others as you would have them say to you.
Think before you speak and act, we’re all God’s children that’s a fact,
So do to others as you would have them do to you.
Do to others as you would have them do to you.
Say to others as you would have them say to you.
Walk a while on others shoes, it’s easy then to always choose
To do to others as you would have them do to you.
Different eyes we have to see and different points of view.
With different hopes and different dreams for you and me for me and you.
Different gifts we have to share to help each other see,
That all of us must learn to care for each one in God’s family.
Do to others as you would have them do to you.
Say to others as you would have them say to you.
Think before you speak and act, we’re all God’s children that’s a fact,
So do to others as you would have them do to you.
Walk a while on others shoes, it’s easy then to always choose
Monica O’Brien sent an e-mail around with her eWorship newsletter recently, highlighting contemporary and uptempo music. Most of them I have blogged here already, but a few are new, so I’m going to have a look.
“Can I?” is a song about homelessness from the marvellous Amanda McKenna that might suit a high school exploring social justice issues.
The sheet music can be purchased at Willow. There is no sample there, so listen to Amanda’s amazing voice on Soundcloud. My backing involves some guesswork. There is a hint of Split Enz’s “My Mistake” at times in the tune.
1 One day you’re just hanging on, the next in dire straits.
The things you least expect become the fears you have to face.
But there’s nowhere safe, a place to call home.
You’re so scared and ashamed, now you’re all alone’
And it could happen to anyone.
2 She’s been hurt so many times it doesn’t faze her anymore.
She fades into the background like a thousand times before.
Who knows what she’ll face when the sun goes down?
Got no private space where she can let her guard down.
She’s never been so lonely.
Chorus
Can I, hold out my hand?
Learn how to stand with my sister and walk with my brother.
Can I, open my heart?
Listen with love to my sister and talk with my brother.
Can I?
3 Dirty and depressed and hasn’t had enough to eat.
He’s sleeping rough and acting tough, surviving on the street,
And it’s cold outside but nobody cares if her lives or dies.
Let’s redress that here with a song by Fiona Dyball herself. I struggle a bit with Marian songs, probably due to my protestant upbringing, but this is quite a nice piece of music and as good a Mary song as I’ve heard.
She notes about her song:
God’s Call is a response to the account of the Annunciation, as told in Luke 1: 26-38. Mary’s call to discipleship is the call for us all: how will each of us respond to God’s invitation of love to fullness of life? This is a unique discernment for each person. The fruit of this deep listening to the Spirit is the joy of God’s faithful accompaniment as we move forward in our lives. God is with us as we build and sustain communities that are a living sign of faith, hope and love.
The piece was commissioned for an international Catholic pilgrimage to Israel in 2019. It premiered at the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth on New Year’s Day, 2019 on the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God.
The download package contains MP3 and PDFs of the Full Score, Cello, C instrument, and Assembly A5.
You can also listen to the song there to get an idea of the lyrics. One of the sample sheets show the SATB for the alleluias at the end so you can get an idea where it’s all heading.
I made two backings, one somewhat following her arrangement ( the piano is BIAB not her piano part) and one with interludes, harmonies and alleluias cut back to fit what might work in a normal parish. The down side of that is having to remove the instrumental parts that presage the melody of the alleluias – can’t have everything. I couldn’t put all the alleluia lines into the backings so best to listen her version for that. The verse lines that lead in to the chorus seem a familiar trope to me, Rob Galea’s “Fill Us Up” is similar too, but I’m sure there’s a famous hymn that has a similar tune for that phrase and I just can’t place it.
Incidentally, the link from her presentation to her article on school liturgy is now dead but it can still be accessed here.
A bit like her presentation at the APMN conference, I bet everyone’s heads were spinning after all that music in one sitting. There was actually even more but I was able to axe all the David Haas selections, which slimmed things down a bit.
I Will Walk in the Presence of God by Tony Alonso
This is new to me and a mantra that is a call to prayer. The sheet music is at GIA and the text is in their preview.
Toolan wrote this in the style of Taizé. The link Dyball provides goes to a collection at OCP, but it is available as a single sheet from GIA just not under it’s title – use this link. The text is in their preview.
The sheet music is free at the Marist website. Caution is advised – you may get stuck there looking at all the music he has written and never emerge. He is the third Australian to get selected here after Fr Rob Galea and Gen Bryant – not counting Hillsong, of course.
So, Fiona Dyball’s presentation is a great resource for high schools, but also for sung prayer suggestions more generally and she deserves congratulations for her road testing.
Fiona Dyball devoted a section of her talk on “road tested repertoire for prayer services at Catholic Secondary Schools” in 2018 to Taizé. She notes you can purchase then for download at their website, but good luck sorting through that lot. I have the book “Songs and Prayers from Taizé”, which is likely all you will ever need and you can buy that from them or from all over the internet including sheetmusicplus. They are also in CWB II and many are in various Willow and GIA hymnals – AOV, Gather, Worship, Gather Australia, etc – ie you may already have these somewhere. Taizé provide the text for the refrains to which I will link.
Taizé provide all sorts of extra instrumentation, but my advice is keep it as quiet and simple as possible just discrete piano or guitar with voice.
My chant backings come with the usual warning that BIAB is lousy at chant – best to watch the videos then strip it back to the minimum. Replace excess music with darkness and candles.
I’m expanding on Fiona Dybell’s presentation she gave in 2018 looking at “road tested repertoire for prayer services at Catholic Secondary Schools”.
Who Will Speak by Marty Haugen (there is a misprint on the handout – it’s not by Bernadette Farrell).
This is the ultimate social justice hymn/prayer but I find hard to play without getting “sing songy”. I sort of do it with a reggae stumble because gospel is beyond me. The sheet music is at GIA. The text is here.
This is a praise and worship song but is indeed a sung prayer on the subject of grace as well. The text is here but it is the Chris Tomlin version that replaces “God of Jacob” with “God” and ruins the wrestling reference, although I note Maher also drops it in his recorded version too. The sheet music is at OCP.
Quietly, Peacefully by Lori True (adapting Dvorak’s New World Symphony”)
This one is new to me but I have a copy in Gather 3 (this also alerted me to the fact that I never got to the third volume of Gather 3rd edition – oh dear). The text is here and you can purchase the sheet music at GIA. It is popular for funerals.
Dyball suggests this for wonder, God’s love and trust. The text is here and the sheet music can be purchased at OCP (NB the link on the handout is wrong).
Oceans by Hillsong (Matt Crocker, Joel Houston and Salomon Ligthelm)
This is noted to be a prayer of trust and the Spirit. The text is here and the sheet music is at praisecharts.
This is a great recessional that Dyball notes has themes of discipleship and thanksgiving. It is also only the second Australian song used here. There is a heavy USA/OCP emphasis, and while there is nothing wrong with the usefulness of the material she has chosen, there is a distinct lack of Australian music generally and an allergy to Willow/AOV material in this presentation that I find rather perplexing, considering it is for Australian high school use. (The whole push of CWB II being the official liturgical music source for the Australian Catholic church always seemed to me to be a continuance of the hierarchy’s antipathy to Willow and jealousy over the success of As One Voice in Australia, but I can’t see why that should be an influence here.)
The text is at Gen’s site and the sheet music can be purchased at Willow, which I note is not linked in the handout – it may have too new for that at the time.
The text is here and the sheet music is also at OCP.
Lord, I Need You by Matt Maher (actually a committee of Daniel Carson, Matt Maher, Christy Nockels, and Jesse Reeves).
This is a new one for me. Dyball suggests it for reconciliation. The text is here. the sheet music is available at various places on the internet including musicnotes.
My Evening Prayer by Sarah Hart
This is also one I haven’t heard before from the ever reliable Sarah Hart and suggested for morning and evening prayer. The text is here. The sheet music is at OCP.
I've worked my way through the As One Voice books and other collections making backings on Band in a Box to help me (& you if you're interested) learn new songs for church. This is aimed at churches and musicians that own the collections but haven't exploited them fully. If you don't have them they are certainly worth buying. This site is educational, nonprofit and designed to enhance the commercial prospects of songwriters. This site does not distribute copyrighted sheet music.
Disclaimer
Any opinions expressed here are personal views and not the responsibility of any Church.
All music backings posted are created by myself and the intention is for them to be used to learn the songs. If any copyright holder wishes me to cease publicising and promoting their wares and directing people to where sheet music can be legally purchased please let me know.
Mason’s “Mass of Glory and Praise”
To access my backings for Paul Mason's mass go to Feb 2011 in the archive.