Songwriting is the act of baring one's soul to another in the form of words and music.
Hello! This week, I created a piano arrangement of the upbeat hymn, Called to Serve, which is one of the suggested songs for this week’s Come Follow Me Book of Mormon lesson. I had a blast putting it together. This lesson studies Alma 17-22 and is called “I Will Make an Instrument of Thee”. It is an astounding and exciting section of scripture!
Hello! Come Unto Jesus is one of the suggested songs for this week’s Come Follow Me Book of Mormon lesson studying Alma 13-16. This lesson is called “Enter into the Rest of the Lord” which phrase can be found in Alma chapter 13:
Help Me Teach with Inspiration is one of the suggested songs for this week’s Come Follow Me Book of Mormon lesson studying Alma 8-12. In this arrangement, I slowed down the speed of the hymn significantly which gave me more time to play around with the melody and rhythm a bit. It isn’t an oft sung hymn, at least in my experience at Church, but actually has a really pretty melodic structure.
Hello! This week, for our Come Follow Me Book of Mormon lesson, I chose to select The Lord is My Shepherd. This is an arrangement I did for a men’s musical number we needed at our recent church conference for the adults in our area. I had adapted it from a previous piano solo to suit this Men’s trio. RD Parsons, Kevin Forbush and Josh Pack are on vocals and did such a wonderful job recording and interpreting this beautiful hymn. I am grateful to them for allowing me to record and film them for this setting!
Testimony is one of the suggested songs to go along with the Come Follow Me Book of Mormon lesson this week. Loren C. Dunn (1930-2001) wrote the words to this hymn. He was a general authority of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints from 1968 until his death. The writer of the music, Michael Finlinson Moody (b. 194), said about the hymn: “Elder Loren C. Dunn once attended a leadership meeting and jotted lines of poetry in response to the powerful testimonies he heard there. These thoughts evolved into a hymn with a number of verses.”