Songwriting is the act of baring one's soul to another in the form of words and music.
The suggested song for April 10-16’s Come Follow Me lesson is “I Believe in Christ”. In my opinion, this is one of the more powerful hymns found in the LDS hymn book; I love it. The title of the lesson is “Thou Art the Christ” and studies Matthew 15-17 and Mark 7-9.
The suggested song for this special Easter week topic is “Jesus Has Risen.” As I was looking over this song in the Primary Songbook, I noticed the song next to it is “To Think About Jesus.” I played around with both of them and decided to combine the two into a medley. “To Think About Jesus” is one of my Mother’s favorite primary songs. She plays the piano and has accompanied for Primary many times. I felt that combining the two songs adds to the depth of the arrangement. I hope you enjoy!
How Great the Wisdom and the Love (Hymn no. 195) is a hymn that is usually sung as a congregation during the sacred sacrament portion of a latter day saint Sunday meeting.
The Come Follow Me lesson is called “Be Not Afraid” and is studying Matthew 14; Mark 6; John 5–6. John 6:68 Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life. 69 And we believe and are sure27 that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God.
I picked “Let Zion in Her Beauty Rise” from the LDS Hymnal, for our song this week. I think it goes well with the scripture passages and is a beautiful hymn. It was really fun arranging a Viola part to go along with it. I had never done that before! I got my good friend Janei Evans, to play it and she did such an amazing job!
“Baptism” is a song from the LDS Children’s Songbook – it speaks of the baptism of Jesus Christ and shares an invitation to follow in his example. Blake Roberts, a young man from my ward/church congregation here in Tucson, joined me for this song. His pure, innocent sound was perfect for it.
Here is a vocal arrangement of “I’ll Go Where You Want Me to Go” as found in the LDS Hymnbook; which is the suggested song for this week’s Come Follow Me lesson on Jonah & Micah. The story of Jonah is one where he at first doesn’t want to “go where you want me to go” and flees the call of God to preach to Nineveh. Upon his calamities and repentance he listens again to the Lord’s command and preaches to the people of Nineveh. Jonah has to repent multiple times for not hearkening and not understanding God’s love for his people of all nations, (….and don’t we all need to do the same thing!)
Here is a piano arrangement of “We Thank Thee O God for a Prophet” as found in the LDS Hymnbook; which is the suggested song for this week’s Come Follow Me lesson on Amos & Obadiah. One verse that stands out to me as going well with this hymn is: Amos 3:7 “Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets”. I love the idea that God has always and will continue to speak to prophets to warn and preach to his children, to act as a “watchman on the tower”, and to give guidance for their specific struggles in the period in which they live.
I was searching through some Christmas Music to decide which song I wanted to cover for December when I came across the original version of this song. It’s from the movie “Meet me in St. Louis” sung by Judy Garland. I really enjoy the first lyrics. They have a bit more emotional tension than I feel the later versions have. For instance: