Church Music

When I did the version of this psalm in Mason’s original Psalms for All Time here, I was frustrated by my inability to link to the particular version of the text. This time the text is slightly different and the tune is slightly different, so I suggest that while you at Liturgical Song buying the collection you listen to the song there, as it is one of the few that he has put up there. The revised Grail text he uses is here.

I made a new backing and it remains a fine setting:

Paul Mason’s series, Psalms for all Time, is a project to get psalms being sung in your parish. If you have cantors, it is a great idea, but if that isn’t going to happen, they are still useful as hymns in themselves. We sing Amanda McKenna’s responses and have the verses said, so I am mainly thinking of these as hymns.

I’ve done the original book last year, which has been updated now as volume one, and will turn to the second volume now. You can (and should) purchase the book at Liturgical Song. It isn’t just sheet music – he has the background and suggested uses for all the psalms as well as a cogent rationale for the singing of psalms in the introduction. There is even a chord sheet and capoing directions where needed to cater for guitarists – CWBII take note! It is possible to be pastorally relevant to guitarists providing music in church and still be liturgically correct – just ask Paul Mason. He also often has SATB arrangements for the refrains if you have a choir of that nature.

Psalm 8 is for The Most Holy Trinity Year C, but has a use for Christian Initiation (outside Easter) and masses for civil needs. It is also a hymn of praise that can be used whenever you can’t face singing “How Great Thou Art” anymore.

I find the choice of English texts for the Psalms a confusing jumble of versions of the Grail and rife with copyright hassles. The text Mason uses is here. (Psalm 8:4-9)

There are still very few You Tube clips of Mason’s material, so if you are using them please post them where we can hear them in action.

This is an Australian song from 2022 designed for use in a Migrant and Refugee Mass. It was produced by the Australian Catholic Migrant and Refugee Office and approved by the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, but don’t let that put you off. The words are by Don Mauro S. Gomez and the music is by Nilo G. Nucup.

There are lots resources including the sheet music and a recording of the song and a backing track on the ACMRO Google drive. This is a direct link to the sheet music.

I made my own backing anyway:

Building the Future Together
Words: Don Mauro S. Gomez
Music: Nilo G. Nucup
Composed: August 06, 2022

Sisters and brothers: migrants and refugees,
together we’ll light up the peripheries
Hand in hand let our voices and dreams soar
Indifference and exclusion will be no more.

Together we’ll embark on a journey
Treading a path to God’s holy city
Together we’ll build a hope-filled future
Where God’s love, joy and peace reign and prosper.
Together on a journey.

Sisters and brothers: migrants and refugees,
God’s love will dispel your fears and miseries
In welcoming each and every one
We welcome in our midst, Christ who makes us one.

Together on a journey

Together we’ll embark on a journey
Treading a path to God’s holy city
Together we’ll build a hope-filled future
Where God’s love, joy and peace reign and prosper
Together on a journey

Sisters and brothers: migrants and refugees: on a journey.

Nihil Obstat: Fr. Trenton Van Reesch
Imprimatur: Abp. Christopher Prowse
Catholic Archdiocese of Canberra and Goulburn
29 July 2022

Produced by the Australian Catholic Migrant and Refugee Office
Australian Catholic Bishops Conference
© August 2022

This is the last song in the 2003 emmanuelworship album Ride of a Lifetime. I haven’t found a lot of songs with a liturgical use, but many are fine songs in a praise and worship context.

This an exciting uptempo testimony style song. It is pitched very high so is either for performance purposes or the chorus is meant to be sung an octave lower by an assembly. There is a section for a rap that in my backing is just left without a melody line so people can fill in their rapping.

There are a couple more to look at from 2003’s emmanuelworship‘s album Ride of a Lifetime.

This is an uptempo song of praise from Liz Buchanan.

I’m working through the emmanuelworship collection from 2003 called Ride of a Lifetime.

This is an unusual song by James Garrahy that dares to be poetic and grand. It is a solo piece that sounds like a show tune really.

I had fun with the backing:

By way of rebuttal from another show tune:

This is also surprisingly not noisy for emmanuelworship. It was intended for children but is in the form of a psalm of praise, so is not only for them. It was written by James Garrahy.

I am looking at Ride of a Lifetime, a 2003 album by emmanuelworship. This is the ballad of the album and was written by Liz Buchanan. While I can’t see a liturgical use, it is heart felt sung prayer and reflection. The verse is very much a solo vehicle, but a crowd could sing the refrain.

You could learn it by singing along to my BIAB backing. I let BIAB fashion a fiddle solo because it isn’t much good at flute solos.

This is Patrick Keady’s quiet song from the collection, Ride of a Lifetime, emmanuelworship‘s 2003 album.

It is sung prayer with some reportage thrown in – a song for reflection and I suspect an opportunity to catch your breath after all the jumping up and down to the other songs. It is also in a reasonable range and singable despite the obligatory syncopation. There is a lot of variation between the two verses to match the text. It is long out of print so I have posted the sheet music.

The instructions suggest “slow down at the end and go off in the Spirit”. I couldn’t find a Band in a Box setting for that.

This is another Patrick Keady song from emmanuelworship‘s 2003 album Ride of Lifetime. This one would work as recessional for a youth orientated mass. It is inspired by Ezekiel 37:7,10. I am finding a lot of fine work in these old (!) folios, that are worth another look and adapting to current needs.

A lot of us would sing this one an octave down and it could certainly be less guitar driven. The “1~2~3~Hey!” is, I’m sure, optional, as I don’t see that in the OT text. I posted the sheet music as emmanuelworship have indicated that were OK with that for collections that are out of print.

My backing is somewhat more sedate than theirs.