A gospel song full of good intentions from Tom Booth continues the gathering and sending forth songs from Spirit & Song Vol One.
The lyrics are at spiritandsong, where you can purchase the sheet music for download. It has some tricky triplets to negotiate and the gospel feel would be easy to lose as some versions on Youtube demonstrate.
This version keeps the gospel feel and nails the coda that I couldn’t get right in my backing.
Pedro Rubalcava wrote this joyful acclamation that can be used whenever we need to thank God — so that’s always. It would be different to live in a parish where bilingual songs made sense. Here there are small groups of lots of different ethnicities but nothing like the Spanish speaking segment of the American Catholic church.
The text is at spiritandsong, where you can hear a snippet and purchase the sheet music for download in various forms.
My backing is in a slightly manic gypsy-mexican style with no offence intended.
I’m going through Spirit and Song Vol 1 looking at their gathering songs and recessionals and I’m up to this one by John D. Becker, who is another songwriter new to me.
You can find the text, listen to a snippet and purchase the song for download at spiritandsong.
You could use this anywhere the Beatitudes are referred to in the liturgy. The verses take these thoughts from Matthew and marry them to an uplifting chorus from John (the way, the truth, the life). I think it works and not just for children.
I’m still in gathering and sending songs in Spirit & Song Vol 1. Steve Angrisano wrote this entrance song that would be best for a youth mass or gathering. I know him mainly from “Go Make A Difference.”
It is upbeat and could be very noisy and joyful. There is a key change to negotiate and it is syncopated and littered with triplets to trick people up.
The text is at spiritandsong. It is available in the collection “You are the Way” at sheetmusicplus.
My backing is gratuitously noisy with over the top guitar solos but is just for learning purposes after all.
This is another Ricky Manalow song, this time with a Japanese/Asian style in a setting based on the Pentecost sequence.
The text is here and it can be purchased for download at OCP. Perhaps it could be used as a gentle gathering him during the Fifty Days of Pentecost with different verses chosen each week. The verse gets pretty high and might need a cantor. I’m not convinced by the idiom and it strikes me as being at risk of being patronising and cringeworthy.
My backing puts the counter melody/harmony in from the second verse. The lines are separated in the stereo mix to assist learning the tunes.
This is a song by Ricky Manalo for Lent from Spirit and Son Vol 1. It is a restrained, gentle song that sounds very singable for most uses in Lent.
The text is here and the sheet music can be purchased for download at OCP.
For this gospel tune Christopher Walker used a nineteenth century refrain by Caroline Noel and adapted the verses from Phillipians 2. I’m still in the gathering and sending songs in Spirit & Song Vol 1.
The text is at spiritandsong and it can be purchased for download at OCP, where you can hear a snippet that has the first chorus done very effectively as solo acapella. The verses have subtle variations and the music notes that the first two verses are quiet with a crescendo in the third and the final verse loud. My backing has none of that subtlety.
This is a dandy version:
This is a P&W setting of an old anonymous American text from the nineteenth century written by Timothy R. Smith.
The text and links to purchase for download are at spiritandsong.
It might work as a recessional at Easter Vigil or other joyful occasions, but its triumphalist nature would require discernment at other times, esp in P&W format. My backing has guitar solos where they are indicated in the music but not the written ones. As that would have taken work I just asked BIAB for solos and it obliged.
Entrance: Blessings on the King (Lynch) AOV 1/104
Psalm 22 (O’Brien)
My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?
Gifts: God of Second Chances (Haas)
Communion: Tree of Life (Thompson) AOV NG 138
Were You There (trad) AOV 1/103
Recessional: We Remember (Haugen) AOV 1/81
The main purpose of this blog is for musicians of modest talents, like myself, to have an idea how a song goes according to the actual music, so they can learn to play it. Many strummers like myself can’t just look at all those notes and figure it out, so I’ve always made a backing on Band in a Box to get the idea. I’m wary of the recorded versions which have solo embellishments and the YouTube clips of other parishes attempts where I might learn their mistakes. I know I have played many songs with the wrong feel I learnt over the years in my parish and was often surprised when I had a good look at the music and entered in the actual notes.
I’ve done all the As One Voices (except the Kids) and miscellaneous songs I’ve been asked to play over the years or had requested, and now I’m going to teach myself some songs that are new to me. I’m starting with Spirit and Song Vol 1 published in 1999 by OCP. I’m using it because OCP really have their act together with downloadable sheet music so that if you hear something you like you can buy it cheaply from them. The whole paperback book cost me all of $A20 some years ago. It is roughly contemporaneous with the first two AOV collections and so there are overlaps that I will leave out, as Willow leant heavily on OCP for AOV. The Mass settings are of course redundant and while there are excellent psalm settings I’ll leave them for another time. The first tranche of songs are gathering and sending forth songs.
Janet Vogt was not a composer with which I was familar. You can hear her song “Age to Age” at MySpace. I think there is a good song under the American style of church music recording that I find hard to take. This version is better:
The text is here (scroll down). It can be purchased for download at OCP.
Vogt uses passages from Isaiah and Matthew in her song that could also be used for Eucharist, mediation and healing applications. It probably needs a lighter touch than I give it. The tune has delightful subtlety but the verses have just enough variation to cause concern and slow the learning process.
