Original post at http://redchairmusic.wordpress.com/2012/07/12/leaning-on-the-everlasting-arms/
I love coming up with new arrangements of very familiar hymns. It is always fascinating to see folks’ faces light up as they sing a song from their childhood in a new way. And there is always a few people that will stop me and say how they took notice of the lyrics for the first time in a long while.
Well here is one from when I was leading at Oakland Baptist Church in Rock Hill, SC.
The idea for this arrangement came one Sunday as I was sitting in the congregation at my brother-in-law’s church. The choir’s anthem began with a simple change from the minor I to the sixth, and that just got my mind rolling. Something simple, something with a bit of soul, something haunting, something memorable. The next morning I sat down and finished out the song. The bridge was an effort to bring a major lift because so much of the song sits in the minor scale and I felt it was beginning to lose the effect of the nice shift from the major one to the minor one in the chorus.
Here is is:
