Robtunes

The minister was preaching a series of sermons on the Psalms. I was inspired to write one of my own, so I wrote this in the spirit of Psalm 148. I taught this to the congregation to sing during this series, but it didn’t go over well. It seemed people were intimidated by the melismas in the chorus. I did try to slow it down a little, but the song loses the exuberance I was looking for when not up to tempo, so I just gave up on having our church sing it. If you want to give it a go,  I’ve included the sheet music for download here. As for why I wrote it? Do we really need a particular reason to sing to the Lord? 🔊 Listen online here. 💾 Download here. Sing to the Lord! Give Him honor and praise! Let our hearts gladly raise Psalms of joy evermore! Sing to the Lord! Lift His name up on high! Let the vaults of the sky ring with song! Alleluia! Alleluia! O sing we unto the Lord! Alleluia! Alleluia! O sing we unto the Lord! Sing to the Lord! Raise to Heaven your voice! Cla...

When I was in university they decided to renovate the library, and that came with a cleaning. Many old items were sold or stored to save space while the building was under construction. A friend picked up some research materials from the early twentieth century on spirituals because he thought I was into musicology. (It turns out I was, but I didn’t know that at the time.) I read through a collection of songs that was filled with tunes we all know and have likely sung, like “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” or “Deep River.” At the back of the book, in something like an appendix, were songs that — well — weren’t very good. They may have been included for the sake of completeness, but frankly they just weren’t at the level of polish that the more familiar songs were. These were more like rough-hewn work songs, most of which were secular. There was one, however, that caught my eye: it had a nice tune and a good message, though poorly communicated. I had never heard it before and thought it woul...