Church Music

This is another Christmas text from Shirley Murray in Alleluia Aotearoa. It is another one for us in the southern hemisphere. The use of the Maori word for love “aroha” need not preclude its use away from New Zealand.

The text and a setting by Colin Gibson (GERALDINE) is at Hope Publications. This is a haunting tune that wanders off into unexpected territory. I guessed the chords for a BIAB backing.

AA on the hand uses a setting by Douglas Mews, which also has some dark harmonies amongst the joyous singing.

Number 25 in Alleluia Aotearoa is “Come to a Wedding”, a Shirley Murray text, but that turned up in Gather Australia so I’ve already blogged it here.

“Come to Our Land” has lines specific to New Zealand, and Holy Spirit in Maori (Wairu Tapu), so I don’t see it can really be used elsewhere. Still, it has a great tune by Colin Gibson that can be found at Hope Publishing along with Murray’s text.

I’m not sure this is how it was intended, but the pushes in the melody suggest a Latin funk style to me, so I made up some chords and made this on BIAB.

One thing you could count on with Shirley Murray was texts for a liturgical purpose. Here is a wedding song from Alleluia Aotearoa filled with hope, joy and realism.

It is set to Ralph Vaughn William‘s tune DOWN AMPNEY, the tune most associated with “Come Down, O Love Divine”. He died in 1958, does that mean his tunes are public domain? In any case the text and sheet music are at Hope Publications. AA chose the same setting for once.

In case you don’t know the tune the fake organ in BIAB does.

Real organ is so much better:

I’m having fun blogging Shirley Erina Murray’s texts from Alleluia Aotearoa.

This one is for Advent.

The text is at Hope Publications, where they have the setting by Douglas Mews. He has a separate tune for verses 2 and 4.

My BIAB backing has made up chords.

AA has this setting, but also provides an alternative one described as a Zulu melody arranged by Roy Tankersley.

BIAB couldn’t do Zulu but could do reggae.

I am working through the Shirley Erena Murray texts in Alleluia Aotearoa.

This is a song for Palm Sunday. I have never found a Palm Sunday song that I like and is fairly singable. The setting here sounds like a nursery rhyme, which jars as the lyrics get darker in the last two verses, and makes me fear I still haven’t found one. The setting is SEE SAW SACCARA DOWN .

The text and sheet music are at Hope Publications.

Getting a rapid 6/8 in BIAB that wasn’t out of kilter took some doing.

The tune doesn’t seem exactly the same as the nursery rhyme versions I’ve heard but this harp performance is nice.

This is another fiery text from Shirley Erena Murray from Alleluia Aotearoa.

If you can cope with, “old gear, old concepts have no place,” it would serve for gathering or dismissing the assembly.

Read the full text at Hope Publishing. They set it to DIVERSITY by Jack Schrader. The tune goes interesting places including up to Eb. I made up chords for a backing.

Hope also suggest the tune LITTLE CORNARD by Martin Shaw. I found the melody and chords in Together In Song (469). I wound up the BIAB fake organ for this one.

AA, while also recommending LITTLE CORNARD, actually set the text to RESURRECTION by Jillian Wray. With some more made up chords I made a BIAB backing for this interesting tune.

This is a song for Eucharist by Shirley Murray from Alleluia Aotearoa. This one is set by a frequent collaborator Colin Gibson (WROSLYN ROAD).

The text and sheet music are at Hope Publishing, where, unlike AA, they provide the chords. Thanks be to God.

3/2 time usually means organ and is difficult to get right on BIAB, which has all of four, count ’em, church organ styles. I overlaid the notes from the sheet music to the chords from BIAB to make things less jarring.

My latest antipodean project is the songs of Shirley Erina Murray in Alleluia Aotearoa. You can buy the collection here as a downloadable pdf or in what may be one of the last 50 physical copies. Because everyone wanted to set her texts I am doing more backings than usual.

The text of this gentle yet firm song is at Hope Publishing, where they provide two settings. The first is by Nancy Raabe (PEACE). It is simple and singable but written in Db – so bring it down to C and everyone is happy.

My backing leaves it in Db and I made up chords based on the sheet music.

The second setting is by Prof. I-to Loh called SAM-KIAP. It’s range is B to a high D so may need a key change depending in where your singers’ strengths are.

Chords were provided (yay) but BIAB has a limited range of world music options and they tend to caricature. Mea culpa.

AA, however, chose to set it to SUANTRAI, a traditional Irish melody, which is fair enough as neither of the other two tunes above were written when AA was published. This is the pick of the tunes, except it has an similar range (Bb to Eb) to SAM-KIAP. Even though it is public domain, I had trouble finding the sheet music, but it is in Together in Song 641. It seems to be a different “Suantrai” to the Irish lullabies on YouTube.

Shirley Murray’s text takes us to Easter and the joy of the resurrection. I love lines like, “You are the pulse of the new creation’s energy”.

Both Hope and Alleluia Aotearoa set this to Jillian Bray‘s emphatic tune. Hope Publishing have the full text and sheet music.

I cranked up the BIAB fake organ with chords sort of guessed from the sheet music.

This is a Christmas song with a text by Shirley Murray that she called the “Hunger Carol”. This is a a great lyric but is, let us say, astringent.

For example:

cold and raw, you know our hunger,

weep out tears and cry our anger,

…

by our greed we crucify you

on a Christmas tree,

Son of poverty.

The full text and sheet music are at Hope Publishing Company. They use the setting (UTRECHT) by Doug Mews. I made up some chords for this BIAB backing.

Alleluia Aotearoa has that backing and also a lovely one by Ian Render (JENNIFER’S GIFT) who I believe was the Dean of Waiapu. My backing has chords I based on the sheet music.

There is also a setting by Carol Brown available at GIA.

This clip fails to acknowledge Shirley Murray as the composer of the text.

This setting is by David Haas, so it will never be used. The clip has the gall to say the lyricist is anonymous!