Here is a very rough recording of the hymn I wrote titled "We Will See and Sing of Him"

It sounds pretty mediocre, but it will give you an idea of what the song sounds like. You can view a lead sheet by viewing the earlier post:

This is my recording of the song Arise My Soul, Arise. The music is by Kevin Twit, and the words by Charles Wesley. I kept the vocal effect on the song because I liked it for some reason.

This is one of my favorite songs to sing in Worship.

I just finished up another new hymn. This one took a bit longer. I thought I was done, then I played it for my wife who let me know that it sounded just like a song by Twila Paris. Which is weird because I've never listened to her or have any of her albums. Apparently I am guilty of subconscious plagiarism. Anyway, after my revisions I am satisfied that it is wholly originally, even at the subconscious level.

Ecclesiastes 1:9 "What has been is what will be,and what has been done is what will be done,and there is nothing new under the sun."

The lyrics, however, are not my work. They are from George Burder. Although I revised the words to make them less awkward, the mood and content of the lyrics are completely Burder's. I appreciate how the lyrics are Trinitarian in their praise of God.

The one surprise to me in writing this hymn is the Dm7 in measure 6. Kind of a fun chord to play in the key of C. I never planned on using that chord, it just sort of happened.




We Will See and Sing of Him

Here is a new hymn I just finished up titled "Hallelujahs to the Lord". The words are old (by Henry Lyte) but the music is original. You can listen to the piano midi file of it and view the music.

This hymn is a song of praise. In the refrain the guys would sing the tenor line, straight eight notes, while the gals would sing the main melody line. The lyrics of the refrain are; "Sing of what God has done, once we were lost, but now we are found! Hearts and voices shall raise, Hallelujahs to the Lord! Hallelujahs to the Lord!"

Admittedly, it sounds like an old baptist hymn (not sure if that's bad), but either way, I'm pretty happy with my first attempt at a hymn.



Hallelujahs to the Lord

If you've never seen this hymn-book before it's definately work checking out. This is Spurgeon's collection of hymns used in his church. Although there is no music (it's just lyrics), it's a great place to find good words to songs.

What's really neat about this link is that you can view the entire book online for free. You can buy it many places, but Google Books has a full view version of it on their website

Our Own Hymn-Book

I've taken an interest recently in how to write songs, particularly worship songs. I've come across some great resources about song writing and plan on sharing them here for others to see. This particular audio resources is titled Principles of Songwriting and it's by Stuart Townend. He gave this teaching at the Worship Conference 2002. This audio is © Sovereign Grace Ministries. www.SovereignGraceMinistries.org and is used with permission.

Here is a link to an online flash based guitar chordbook. It shows how to play basically any type of chord at all. This is especially useful in playing hymns. Hymns seem to require much more than the basic major/minor chords to give the music the right nuance.


http://www.chordbook.com/guitarchords.php