Church Music

This is a song from the nineteenth century to the tune Kingsfold with words by Horatius Bonar.  I have a distorted memory that every second song in the old blue hymnal in the Presbyterian church I grew up in was by Horatius Bonar and this one one of the three tunes to which we sang everything.  That can’t be right of course, this is much too nice a tune for us to have sung. This site has a cd with 13 000 pages of Mr Bonar if you feel the need.

This is a version by an angelic young voice that will make you feel plain and old, but there you go. I’m not sure what’s going on with my version but you should be able to learn the tune from it, and that may have to do.

Verse 1

I heard the voice of Jesus say,
“Come unto me and rest;
lay down, thou weary one, lay down
thy head upon my breast.”
I came to Jesus as I was,
so weary, worn, and sad;
I found in him a resting place,
and he has made me glad.

Verse 2

I heard the voice of Jesus say,
“Behold, I freely give
the living water; thirsty one,
stoop down and drink, and live.”
I came to Jesus, and I drank
of that life-giving stream;
my thirst was quenched, my soul revived,
and now I live in him.

Verse 3

I heard the voice of Jesus say,
“I am this dark world’s light;
look unto me, thy morn shall rise,
and all thy day be bright.”
I looked to Jesus, and I found
in him my Star, my Sun;
and in that light of life I’ll walk
till traveling days are done.

© Oxford University Press

This is another reflective chant from Erica Marshall with lots of uses. If you go to her site you can click on this track as one of her sample tracks and you can hear the whole thing done as a very effective four part round.

Receive the light of Christ.

may he shine within our hearts.

May the Christ light fill us

With joy and peace.

© Erica Marshall

I like the idea of Mary singing a folk song. It sounds much more likely than the more magnificent settings, as it is a protest song after all.

Peter Kearney has been writing songs forever, or at least since 1966 (The Beatitudes).  I was astonished to see him large as life at the AOV conference a year ago, when he claimed he must have been a child prodigy.  You can hear a nice simple guitar and vocal version of this song here.

Peter has put the text up here. You can also visit his website.

Br Rufino Zaragoza’s song based on St Francis’ Canticle of Brother Sun is a pretty tune and can be used as a four part round, which would be wild.  A cute children’s choir, complete with very enthusiastic pianist, sings it here. My backing is a country waltz played through three times.

All praise, all glory, all blessing

To our most high God.

You alone deserve honour and praise,

Holy, loving God.

© OCP Publications 1988

I know it isn’t Easter, but Joe Santsingh from Dalby sent me some music he has made, including this song by M.T. Winter. It’s nice to hear computer generated music made by someone who knows what they’re doing and also having a lot of fun. You can hear a version by the Prodigal Apostles here.  Better still sing along to Joe’s version.

My Lord he died for a kingdom
To redeem the hearts of men.
Now my people don’t you weep,
He has risen from His sleep
He lives again, ALLELUIA

Chorus
SING ALLELUIA, THE LORD IS RISEN
HE IS RISEN INDEED ALLELUIA.

My Lord came forth like the morning
With the splendor of the sun
Came triumphant from the womb,
From the darkness of the tomb,
The victory won ALLELUIA

Chorus

My Lord united our mountains,
With the everlasting hills
Now the seasons and the sea
Sing a song of victory
Rocks and rills, ALLELUIA

Chorus

My Lord renewed all creation
that had waited late and long.
Now we all with one accord
Live and love the risen Lord
This is our song, ALLELUIA

Chorus

This is one of many settings of Micah 6:8 and, while we’ve never done it locally, it has a lot going for it.

It is available to purchase for download at As One Voice.

It is a gentle song by Trisha Watts and Monica O’Brien and it would be almost worth doing just to get people singing about freedom and the earth being our mother – shocking.  I like the shortness of the verses and the relaxed chorus. I think it is even better a bit slower than the 116 suggested -I used 100.

Refrain

Act justly, love tenderly,

Walk humbly with our God.

Act justly, love tenderly,

Walk humbly with our God.

Verse 1

The Lord requires only this: that we love one another.

Reaching out with compassion to the Earth.

Refrain

Verse 2

The Earth, our mother, our life, rejoices in our freedom.

Healing lives that are broken and afraid.

Refrain

Verse 3

Let our voices be heard sing the wonder of creation.

Seeking lives of forgiveness for our world.

Refrain

© Willow Connection 1991.

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

Chorus

© Mark Altrogge

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.

Interestingly, Toolan agrees that the song should not work.

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).

Karen Lafferty wrote this song nearly forty years ago. She discusses the song here. You can hear her version here.

It’s another song I’ve played so often I don’t know what to make of it, it just is. You can sing allelulias over the song one bar per syllable.

Verse 1

Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness,

And all these things shall be added unto you.

Allelu, Alleluia.

Verse 2

Ask and it shall be given unto you; seek and ye shall find;

Knock and it shall be opened unto you.

Allelu, Alleluia.

Verse 3

Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in their midst;

And whatsoever ye ask, I will do,

Allelu, Alleluia.

© Maranatha! Music 1972

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.