This one is based on the good old C major scale. Two mentors influenced the outcome of this setting. First is Fr. Leo Patalinghug (try Googling him, a talented and colorful priest) who told me many times to keep my psalms simple. In fact he once held a seminar for us St. John, Westminster music leaders to teach us how to perform the Meinrad Psalm Tones.

Anyway, so there are a few of these settings that utilize the scale, you can’t get much simpler than that. And he’s the reason this one is not call and response like the accompaning extended choral version of this psalm setting. He doesn’t like call/response settings. The other mentor is Don Henderson, an excellent music minister who now teaches I believe at the high school or college level. He once told me that when you write for congregational you should write "from C to shining C". Which I can relate to anyway as a bass. I start straining at D, and Eb depends on the syllable and whether or not I’ve been drinking too much coffee that week!

But a great text nonetheless: "I turn to you, Lord, in my time of need, and you fill me with the joy of salvation."

God bless.