Church Music

I’ve blogged two volumes of WLP’s Voices As One collections. They call themselves a site for modern Catholic music. The collections are still for sale at WLP and there is a Vol 3 as well. Most of the songs are available to purchase for download, so there will be little need for further compilations.

The blurb for the third volume says:

Use this series of songs for liturgy, retreats, concerts, prayer nights, gathering, youth events, and sending.

So as a resource, Voices As One has a lot of solo material, choir pieces and songs suitable for things other than liturgy, which is their aim. There are obviously churches where their liturgical songs are the norm, as Ed Bolduc’s recommendation for liturgy are largely from this repertoire.

I can’t see it being anything more than a fringe player for parishes in Australia. As One Voice: Next Generation has some of this sort of music and picks the best from UK, US and Australian publishers and so makes more sense for an Australian parish as a resource.

There are, however, many good songs I hadn’t come across, and I enjoyed blogging them as a change from the traditional Hymnody of CWB II.

This is the last song to blog from the collection Voices As One Vol 2, because the rest are redundant mass settings.

This song by David Ruis is call and response, praise and worship music and is more inventive than most of that genre with the response not always echoing the cantor’s line. The melody lines cross so it does need a cantor for the verses.

WLP only have the sheet music for subscribers but musicnotes sell it and the text in their sample pages.

I’m nearly finished this book and have at last come across a clearly liturgical song for Eucharist by Thomas Lucas.

It has the form verse/verse/refrain/verse/refrain/repetitive coda. It is a slow but syncopated song with lots of pushes on the chords that will be a stretch for most assemblies unless gospel is their forte. I think it is a choir piece at best.

The sheet music is available at WLP where the text is in their sample.

This was a struggle on BIAB.

I really like this solo ballad by David Yackley. I can’t see it performing any liturgical function though.

The sheet music can be purchased at WLP where the text is in their sample.

The sheet music gives the option of repeating the verse as a solo, so I let BIAB loose to do that in my backing:

Entrance: Come As You Are (Brown) AOV 1/31

Psalm 92 (McKenna)

I will praise your name forever, my king and my God.

Gifts:   Here I Am Lord (Schutte) AOV 1/90

Communion:  Come to the Table   (Burland) AOV NG 33

Thanksgiving:  Lord, the Light of Your Love  (Kendrick) AOV 2/59

Recessional:  Sing of the Lord’s Goodness   (Sands) AOV 1/131

This is one of the better solo or band songs in Voices As One Vol 2, that will find its uses outside of liturgical celebrations. It is by Darrell Evans.

The text is at the Casting Crowns website. The sheet music can be purchased at various sites including musicnotes.

BIAB had fun putting Mark Knopfler style guitar around the melody.

The is a P&W song written by a small collective of Johnny MacPowell, Mark D. Lee, Brad Avery, Tai Anderson and David Carr. There aren’t really enough words in the text to justify the number of songwriters, but they are all members of Third Day so I suppose that explains it.

The text is here. The sheet music can be purchased at praisecharts.

This is a very repetitive but catchy song from a committee of Jami Smith, Susanna Bussey Kirksey and Dan Collins. I doesn’t appear to have much liturgical potential. I’m not sure that “wider than the gap you filled” is a helpful text.

The text is here. The sheet music can be purchased at musicnotes.

This was more enjoyable than usual to make a BIAB backing,

This is a two person or 2 choir song that is more show tune than church song.

The two parts in the verses are call and response, then harmonising, then switching parts and it could not possibly invite any participation from an assembly.

It is by Paul A. Tate and Paul L. Berrell and because of the latter is wiped from WLP.

Sheetmusicplus still sell the music, where the text is in their sample.

I did the best I could with two melody lines on BIAB.

Entrance: Hosea (Norbet) AOV 1/30

Psalm 32 (McKenna)

The Lord hears the cry of the poor

Gifts:  The Cry of the Poor (Foley) AOV 1/83

Communion: Gift of Finest Wheat  (Westendorf/Kreutz) CWB II 651

Thanksgiving: Be Merciful (Haugen)

Recessional: We Are Called  (Haas) AOV 2/60