Not only did I have a little theme song for William our cat, which I was able to turn into a little lullaby, I also had one for our other cat Mimi.
Her lyrics were “Little Mimi, little Mi-mi-mi,” etc., and I often sing it to her as I’m carrying her into the house at night. Wanting again to do something spiritual with it, and although it has some cha-cha-sounding syncopation in it when played a little faster, slowing it down made it sort of like a lullaby again to me, and being short like William’s song, I put some quick lullaby-esqe words to it, and here is how this one turned out:
Thank you Lord for this day of care And the graces you did kindly share! If you please grant us rest May your name eternally be blessed!
When I started to score it, I wasn’t sure how to write the syncopation in measures two and four; even though they’re technically 4/3 with the last two notes tied, that just seemed more complicated in trying to read it than to just write it out the way I did, a little more literally.
Anyway, as before, I’m pleased and thankful to be able to do a little something with the little tune the Lord granted. 🙂
We always pray the Lord glorify Himself through us in whatever way He may, and maybe even through a simple little melody!
Over the months, I put together another melody that I kind of liked and was able to remember. This one I would sing to Albus, the white musical rooster that used to crow the beginning of Beethoven’s fifth symphony, when he would come up to me at night and want me to pick him up and set him in my lap before putting him up for the night. The lyrics were simple: “Albus, and Albus.”
When that stopped, we had a hen that would stay with the goats at night, and I would carry her in from the goat field to the chicken tractor to put her up. This poor little hen’s eye had turned into a grey, round orb, and I’m pretty sure she couldn’t see out of it, or see well, and I believe would cause her panic. But because of that, I called her “Globey,” and her lryics were “Globey, and Globey.” As I would walk with her singing the song, when I would get to the held note at the end of the third stanza, I would put my mouth above her head and do a ’70s stereo effect, moving my mouth left right left for each beat of the measure. 🙂
Here is a picture of her and her eye:
And here is a picture of Sue after Globey “let go” all over her after catching her. 😀 One of the fun-factors of farm life!
Recently, she stopped hiding in the goat sheds at night, and started hiding in grasses in the goat fields, and we were unable to find her at night. Sadly, it appears the dogs got to her one morning, or found what was left of her. She’ll be a fond memory though because of carrying her in at night, and her relation to this tune.
And so, with this one being a tune long enough to have an actual verse and chorus, and again wanting to do something spiritual with it, I set out to try and find hymn lyrics that would fit the meter of the song. Usually, you start with lyrics and write the song to it, so trying to fit lyrics to this tune in particular actually proved to be quite difficult, as the meter was not very standard (10.10.10.10.10.8.10.8), which limited it to only a few I could find, and since I wanted the words to be doctrinally correct, and the author not tied to improper doctrine.
Eventually though, I found one I could go with: Almighty Father of All Things That Be, by Ernest Edward Dugmore. With some tweaking of the original lyrics, and turning the tune’s chorus meter to 10.9 instead of 10.8, I was able to acceptably fit the lyrics to the tune.
It was pleasing in the end to take the “Albus/Globey” tune and have it seem to work out fairly nicely, at least to me. 🙂
I am thankful to the Lord to have been able to take this little song and actually find some lyrics to fit it, and I pray perhaps it might be something that brings glory to Him!
I have a musical background and will sometimes set out to write a song, like with Moses’ Song, or sometimes I just come up with little tunes, usually as I’m putting away animals at night or walking the dogs or what have you.
Recently after having a few of them, and since they were ones that I had continued to be able to remember them over time, I thought I might try to put some words to them, or find words for them.
This first one in this blog post is one I came up with for William our cat. At one point I dubbed him “The Williminator,” said with emphasis on the last “tor” — I imagine a cartoon superhero announcer saying “It’s the Willimina-tor!” 🙂 I called him that because he liked to Williminate mice, and he would often Williminate out his backend what were to us quite noxious fumes, and you would never know when one was coming! 🙂
At any rate, I recorded it one time just so I would have it stored somewhere. I’m sort of only including this because of the very end — see if you can hear it. Please excuse the singing 🙂 :
Could you hear it? When I did that recording, William was there, and that was he at the very end of it, unsolicited. I don’t know if that meant he approved or what, but it was kind of neat he exclaimed right after I had sung his theme song.
And so, with wanting to do something more permanent with it, and with it to us sounding like a lullaby, I added a few lyrics to it along that vein, wanting to have it spiritually based, and this is how it ended up:
Hey you sleepy head Time to go to bed May God keep you through the night In His arms of might!
It’s a simple little thing, but I’m glad I could take William’s theme song and do a little something with it. 🙂
I am thankful to the Lord for Him granting I learn music, to my parents for making that happen, for the opportunity to participate in music in this way, for the gift of little William and his inspiration, and for the gift of this little lullaby.
A couple of times now, we’ve had roosters at some point in their lives have crows that sound like familiar human tunes! It brings a smile to my face when I hear them, in just how much their crows sound like a snippet of a familiar song or piece of music.
Anyway, here is a video of them in action — the two music compositions being the standard Bridal March and Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony! 😀 See if you can hear the similarities:
We are always grateful to the Lord for His continued provisions, both spiritually and temporally, and we thank Him for these little gifts of farm fun He grants out here!
2 And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire: and them that had gotten the victory over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name, stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God.
3 And they sing the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints.
4 Who shall not fear thee, O Lord, and glorify thy name? for thou only art holy: for all nations shall come and worship before thee; for thy judgments are made manifest.
Some time ago, our teacher mentioned these verses in Revelation 15 that talk about the saints singing the “song of Moses” in heaven, and wondered if someone had already put together words and music for that so that we as a group could begin to sing it now. In looking it up, I discovered a song of Moses sung after the Israelites crossed the Red Sea, which is in Exodus 15:1-19; and although there is another “song of Moses” in Deuteronomy 32, Puritan commentators John Gill and Matthew Henry believe the Revelation reference is to the Exodus song. Back then in trying to find a singing version of the song on the Web, we weren’t able to really find anything. Well, I have some musical background, and have attempted in the past to compose lyrical songs; and every once in a while — which has turned out to be about once a decade — I am able to put one together; and so, I thought I would try my hand at this, and see what might come of it.
I started with the words. The first line of the song, which is “I will sing unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously” sort of seemed to have natural musical meter — and with a couple of changes fell nicely into what’s called common meter, which has 8 syllables followed by 6 (like “Amazing Grace”) — and that set the lyrical rhythm for the song. With my first go at the words, I didn’t really put them together in proper meter; and so, I went back over them, and was able to finally work them into metrical shape. This was all over several months.
After the lyrics were basically done and our teacher approved of the “translation” from the actual scriptures to my lyrical version, it was time to see if I could come up with the tune. Over months again, I tried several times, but nothing really came out right, or I lost interest in pursing the version that I had started.
Then one night, after midnight I believe, I was having trouble sleeping, and I starting thinking about the first line of the song, and soon a melody came to me, which worked nicely with the song’s meter, and didn’t sound too badly to me. I continued on through the rest of the first verse, trying to continue with related melody lines (ones that flowed melodically from one phrase to the next). With the length of the song, I was hoping to come up with a “quadruple” common meter version (“Amazing Grace” is single common meter), so the melody wouldn’t be repeated many times trying to get through all of the lyrics. Finally, I was able to work through a quadruple version of the melody, which to me sounded like it might work…I was only hoping I could remember it the next morning! I generally figure though that if it’s a melody worth remembering, it’ll be remembered…
The next morning, I thought about it, but was having trouble remembering how it started. Shortly though, I did remember it, and then figured I’d better write it down. Once on paper, I was very thankful to the Lord for granting the tune, and thankful to now finally have a melody that sounded like it just might work and maybe even sound nicely. At one point, I actually teared up, happy and thankful.
Once the melody was complete, it was just a matter of putting a chord progression to it, and then voicing the parts, since this would be in the form of a typical hymn.
I sat down at the piano, worked out the chord progression and then the voicing; and here is how it came out!
We’re just starting to learn it here as a group, and so hopefully at some point, I’ll be able to have a recording of us all singing it, in parts, if the Lord wills.
I am thankful to the Lord for granting this, and pray He uses it for His glory and the benefit of His Church.
Heb. 11:8-10 - "By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went. By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise: For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God."
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