This is a P&W song from Mark Altrogge with no obvious liturgical use (which is fine – The Source isn’t meant to be a collection of liturgical songs), but a strong pop song nonetheless. You can hear a decent sample of it here and apparently download a free lead sheet here. You can even by a proper backing track for less than a dollar here.
Chorus
Better by far is Your presence
Better by far is Your Spirit
Nothing compares
To Your love poured out in my heart
Better by far is Your presence
Better by far is Your Spirit
Nothing compares
To Your love poured out in my heart
It’s better by far
Verse 1
Better by far
To be near You
Than be freed from all of my trials
Better by far
That You make me like Christ
Than to give me all I desire
Chorus
Verse 2
Better by far
Just to know You
Than be blessed in all other ways
Better by far
That You work in my life
To the praise of Your glory and grace
This is a much loved song by Sr Suzanne Toolan. There are probably many reasons why this is so, but it has many flaws I’m afraid. A big problem is the range of the thing – low Bb to a high F. We often play it without the capo (ie 3 semitones down) but while we hit the high notes we can’t scrape up the low. I heard this mentioned as a good song for children by someone who should have known better and was appalled. The verses are also very difficult to fit as each picks which notes it will favour and the assembly usually gets lost.
The text is available here. The sheet music can be purchased at GIA.
Toolan is aware that some don’t care for the song, but she takes criticism in stride. She has wondered about its popularity. “It’s a hymn that really shouldn’t work for the congregation. It’s too low. It’s too high. I often ask myself: Why does it work so well, then? I think it’s the scripture. The scripture is so strong.”
The scripture is great, sure and the crescendo thrilling, but is it doable – not really. Perhaps we like to kid ourselves we can hit those notes. Here’s a pretty attempt. My backing is more uptempo (and in the original key).
Our parish has started the adventure of the new mass settings with a safe option, Haugen’s revised Mass of Creation. From September we are using Paul Mason’s Mass of Glory and Praise, which is completely new to us, and for December we will use the revised Mass Shalom. All fairly safe and predictable.
We have also bought a few other masses, some of which I have already looked at on the blog, and I hope to look at some more over the coming months.
Emmanuelworship wrote Fire Mass that was used for many years in our parish and I see no sign of a revised version of that coming out, so we got the two new masses from them, Rivers and Rivers Youth, written by Patrick Keady and Roby Curtis. I’ll have a look at Rivers, and plan to do the Youth Mass at a later date.
The first thing to note is that they have provided a swiss army knife of a mass bundle. You can see at their site that for $80 you get both settings, a hard copy and the CDs, as well as a CD ROM with backing tracks, pdfs of the songs (piano and guitar parts), alternative arrangements, powerpoints and a liturgy planner. Even within the masses there are extra options, for example in Rivers, you can use an Amen that is reminiscent of the Holy and Memorial Acclamations, or one that harks back to the Gloria.
You can now listen to samples on their site as well, which is most useful.
None of this matters much if the masses aren’t usable however, and the Rivers Mass certainly has merit. You need not be concerned that it is just rowdy young persons’ music, because it is not. Rivers is actually a reflective and almost sedate contemporary mass music. I’m only going to blog the pieces that we would use, as we never sing the Kyrie and the Our Father.
Gloria
I struggled to get a good 6/8 feel to my backing and so it is rather less energetic than I would have liked. Throughout I’ve used almost exclusively MIDI based sounds in BIAB with some Realtrack 12 string for embellishment.
This is certainly different, but in a good way. The refrain is repeated twice at the beginning and then it is sung straight through with no return to the refrain. It is therefore a lot shorter than your average Gloria. I haven’t put it in my backing but they have music to sing “Glory to God in the highest” twice under the three Amens. It is 6/8 but on a couple of occasions he stretches 4 notes over the six beats, an antitriplet I suppose. It sounds natural once you’ve heard him sing it a few times but it might cause mild panic if it sneaks up on you unnoticed. He loves to jazz up his chords, but I’m sure it will sound reasonable if less accomplished guitarists just play the root chords. All in all a joyous and interesting Gloria.
Gospel Acclamation
They repeat, “Hallelu, Hallelujah, Hallelujah” twice before and once after the verse. Their music has the response for Ordinary time, “Speak Oh Lord…” It is styled after the Gloria and is an uplifting introduction to the gospel.
Holy
From this point on emmanuelworship go reflective and respectful (I kid you not). We are in slow 4/4 now and the only difficulty may be the dotted and double dotted notes that give it a languid feel in places and a slow triplet feel in other places.
Memorial Acclamation 2
We seem to use the “When we eat this bread…” acclamation, so that’s the one I’ve done here. This has the same feel as the Holy.
Amen 1
As already noted, you have a choice to use a 6/8 Amen that is reminiscent of the uplifting Gloria. To my mind that would interrupt the mood that has been set, and it would be better to use this Amen as this follows the Holy and Memorial Acclamation in style, although for some reason the key has been changed from D to E.
Lamb of God
We are still in E so perhaps the Amen is to step up to the Lamb of God, who knows. This is slightly faster and has a different feel to the preceding pieces. There is an instrumental interlude, which reminds me of the very good Lamb of God in Keady’s Fire Mass. It appears that the last note in the lead sheet I printed off the CD is wrong – it has an F where there should be an E. I don’t know if the other sheets have the same error as I have passed the CDs and books onto other music teams for their appraisal.
I have to say that this is a mass that is certainly playable in the suburbs. There is enough oddness to make it memorable and once the occasional rhythmic eccentricity is understood nothing to scare the weekend warriors away really. As suggested, just ignore the clever chording if it bothers you or capo it of existence, and you could always start off with their excellent backing tracks if it really was a problem.
The Mass is easily more playable than half of the selected pieces by the Australian Bishops and there is no reason it could not be used all around the world. I suspect that Rivers Youth is the rowdy one if you are looking for typical emmanuelworship material, but this is a pleasant surprise and broadens their appeal considerably.
Rex Urbano and the choir at Our Lady Of Fatima, Acacia Ridge are marking Mary MacKillop’s feast day tomorrow by singing Gary Pinto’s song about the saint.
You can hear Gary Pinto’s version here. The sheet music is available here. It goes very high and can just about be sung down an octave. My backing only uses the MIDI voices on BIAB and since the sheet music is out there I’ll put a link for the MIDI file as well.
This is another song by Robin Mann. The tune starts out as Waltzing Matilda then goes off on its own after a few lines. I worry it gets a bit sing songy but perhaps it would reward careful use.
Verse 1
How shall I call you? Maker of heaven,
poet of sunset and painter of sky,
Father almighty, who’s running to find us,
giving his Son who must suffer and die.
Chorus
Glory to the Father, the Son and the Spirit,
let’s sing it again and again.
Glory to the Father, the Son and the Spirit,
forever and ever. Amen.
Verse 2
How shall I call you? Lover of children,
shepherd and teacher and brother and friend,
healer of blind man and healer of leper;
you are beginning and middle and end.
Chorus
Verse 3
How shall I call you? Spirit of comfort,
cloud in the daytime and fire in the night,
guide as we wander, protector in danger,
listener and helper and giver of sight.
Chorus
Verse 4
How shall I call you? Master and servant,
lord of the seasons and lord of the years;
faithful and constant in loving and mercy,
giver of laughter and taker of tears.
You can hear it on organ and single voice here or with a choir and extra brass with the descant here. Of course organ music is a relatively modern introduction to the Catholic church from the bawdy houses and, as Psalms are music for stringed instruments, my guitar based backing is far more appropriate. It is also a lot more joyous. I have put the melody at one extreme of the listening spectrum and after two verses the descant starts at the other end.
REFRAIN
Sing to the Lord! Alleluia! Sing to the Lord all nations!
God has made salvation known. Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!
VERSE 1
Sing to the Lord! Sing a new song!
Praise the Lord with shouts of gladness! Alleluia!
REFRAIN
VERSE 2
Sing to the Lord! Praise the Holy One!
God alone is our salvation! Alleluia!
REFRAIN
VERSE 3
Sing to the Lord! Sing of wondrous deeds!
Mighty Lord of all creation! Alleluia!
REFRAIN
VERSE 4
Sing to the Lord! Praise God in the heights!
Faithful is God’s love forever! Alleluia!
I’m coming across songs that I suppose many people know well and I’m hearing for the first time. This song by David Haas is a communion song that I haven’t come across. Listen here to a very tasteful version. I wonder why we’ve never done it, we do enough other Haas songs.
The text is available here. It can be purchased in various collections at GIA, and oddly at OCP too, or as a single sheet at sheetmusicplus.
Monica Brown’s song “Celebrate” is probably another children’s song that should not be left just for children.
It can purchased in the collection “Praise and Blessings” at Emmaus.
The double handclap after each “celebrate” is not essential unless you are a child of course, in which case it is obligatory (ie Celebrate [clap clap] what we have been given). Otherwise it is a popular song that can as noisy as the kids let you make it.
Refrain
Celebrate what we have been given,
Celebrate what we have received.
Celebrate the spirit of Jesus , alive
In our hearts.
Verse 1
No longer shall you be people who walk in darkness,
It is the Spirit who draws you into the light.
Refrain
Verse 2
Even the earth cries out. It longs to receive new life.
It is the Spirit who fills the world with new life.
Refrain
Verse 3
You who are gather’d here share life and love together.
You can hear enough of this Erica Marshall song in the extract at AOV to get the idea. It is designed to work as an unaccompanied round or a reflective mantra (or both). My backing strives for a drone like effect.
Breathing now the life of God the Spirit in us singing…
Come light up our hearts with joy! Heal and clear our eyes to see!
Warm our hearts with peace. Warm our hearts with peace.
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.
