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Over time I have written a number of songs. I will continue to add them to this blog so, please, keep coming back to see what's new.

Terri


Thursday, April 20, 2023

Abide With Me!

Abide with me! fast falls the eventide;

The darkness deepens. Lord, with me abide!

When other helpers fail and comforts flee,

Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me!


Swift to its close ebbs out life’s little day.

Earth’s joys grow dim; its glories pass away.

Change and decay in all around I see;

O thou who changest not, abide with me!


I need thy presence ev’ry passing hour.

What but thy grace can foil the tempter’s pow’r?

Who, like thyself, my guide and stay can be?

Thru cloud and sunshine, Lord, abide with me!


— Henry F. Lyte





Click HERE to download free sheet music 

Saturday, April 1, 2023

High on the Mountain Top

High on the mountain top

A banner is unfurled.

Ye nations, now look up;

It waves to all the world.

In Deseret’s sweet, peaceful land,

On Zion’s mount behold it stand!


For God remembers still

His promise made of old

That he on Zion’s hill

Truth’s standard would unfold!

Her light should there attract the gaze

Of all the world in latter days.


His house shall there be reared,

His glory to display,

And people shall be heard

In distant lands to say:

We’ll now go up and serve the Lord,

Obey his truth and learn his word.


For there we shall be taught

The law that will go forth,

With truth and wisdom fraught,

To govern all the earth.

Forever there his ways we’ll tread,

And save ourselves with all our dead.


  — Joel H. Johnson





Fun fact:  Joel Johnson is my husband’s 2nd great-granduncle




Click HERE to download free sheet music  

Friday, March 24, 2023

Nearer, My God, to Thee

Nearer, my God, to thee,

Nearer to thee!

E’en though it be a cross

That raiseth me.

Still all my song shall be

Nearer, my God, to thee,

Nearer, my God, to thee,

Nearer to thee!


Though like the wanderer,

The sun gone down,

Darkness be over me,

My rest a stone,

Yet in my dreams I’d be

Nearer, my God, to thee,

Nearer, my God, to thee,

Nearer to thee!


There let the way appear,

Steps unto heav’n;

All that thou sendest me,

In mercy giv’n;

Angels to beckon me

Nearer, my God, to thee,

Nearer, my God, to thee,

Nearer to thee!


Then with my waking thoughts

Bright with thy praise,

Out of my stony griefs

Bethel I’ll raise;

So by my woes to be

Nearer, my God, to thee,

Nearer, my God, to thee,

Nearer to thee!


Or if, on joyful wing

Cleaving the sky,

Sun, moon, and stars forgot,

Upward I fly,

Still all my song shall be

Nearer, my God, to thee,

Nearer, my God, to thee,

Nearer to thee!


  — Sarah F. Adams, 1805-1848





Click HERE to download free sheet music  

Friday, March 10, 2023

We Ever Pray for Thee

I held the door open for the prophet once.  I was 18 years old and just out of high school.  I had headed to Brigham Young University a month before school started, thinking I might have a better chance at finding part-time work before the throng of students arrived for fall semester.  I landed a part-time job doing janitorial work at the Wilkinson Center, hub of the BYU campus.  One week into the job, I was at work thinking it’s just another ordinary day, when I became aware that there was to be a commencement luncheon in room 324 that day and several church dignitaries would be in attendance.


Journal entry from August 15, 1980:


Three hours into my shift at around 1 o’clock I grab a rag and a squirt bottle and head up to the third.  Outside 324 there are about five guys wearing suits and have little transmitter earphones in one ear.  I am standing at a nearby drinking fountain — I’ve washed it about 25 times (inconspicuously, of course) hoping to get a glimpse of the prophet and then I hear one guy say to another,  “They’ve gotta be out by 1:15.”  I look at  my watch — 13 after.  I’m going crazy.  Then the secret agents (I call the bodyguards secret agents) say, “OK, here they come.”  My heart skips five beats.  I scooted up and I asked one of the secret agents how often the first presidency come here like this.  He said, “All four of them together come about once every 100 years.”  I ALMOST DIED.  Then the secret agent said to me, “How would you like to do the most important job in your life?”  I screamed, “Sure!”  He said, “Will you hold the elevator door open for the prophet?”  By now I’ve totally lost all my senses!!  I shove the rag and sprayer in my left hand and hide them behind my back.  That vest though, the only time I see them in person and I have to be wearing that pukey yellow janitors vest.  HERE THEY COME!!  My stomach is turning flops.  

First Marion G. Romney and N. Eldon Tanner and an agent get on the elevator and I get to shake their hands.  I was so excited I almost threw up on them. They go down.  Elder Packer and his wife and some others go down on the other elevator.  Then President Benson and his wife come.  BYU President Dallin Oaks and his family, Barbara Smith and her husband, FINALLY PRESIDENT SPENCER W. KIMBALL AND HIS WIFE CAMILLA.  I just couldn't believe it.  He was adorable wearing a bright yellow Hawaiian lei around his neck.  They were so gracious.  I shook their hands too.  

After they had gone and I came to my senses, I realized that the rag I had shoved behind my back was dripping wet (25 times, remember!?!)  I had held the rag against my pants all that time.  Now I have this big wet spot on the back of my pants.  For the rest of my shift I kind of walked with my back to the wall.

 


We ever pray for thee, our prophet dear,

That God will give to thee comfort and cheer;

As the advancing years furrow thy brow,

Still may the light within shine bright as now,

Still may the light within shine bright as now.


We ever pray for thee with all our hearts,

That strength be given thee to do thy part,

To guide and counsel us from day to day,

To shed a holy light around our way,

To shed a holy light around our way.


We ever pray for thee with fervent love;

And as the children’s prayer is heard above,

Thou shalt be ever blest, and God will give

All that is meet and best while thou shalt live,

All that is meet and best while thou shalt live.


— text by Evan Stephens 




Click HERE to download free sheet music 


 

Thursday, February 23, 2023

How Firm a Foundation

At an early age I was drawn to the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. I didn't mind practicing quite as much while playing his minuets and preludes.  As the years progressed I found his book of Inventions fascinating.  In college when cramming for tests late into the night, my go-to study music was usually Bach. I had to keep the volume down, however, otherwise I’d find myself focusing on the music instead of the task at hand.   


JS Bach was a man of God.  He spent his entire life working primarily as a church musician.  In all his 65 years, he was best known as a gifted organist rather than a prolific composer.  He created so many masterpieces, yet only ten of his compositions were ever published in his lifetime.  


His music possessed an incredible spiritual vitality.  As he would sit down to compose, he would often scribble J.J. at the beginning of a composition — Jesu Juva; Latin for “Help me, Jesus.”   And when finishing a manuscript, he routinely initialed S.D.G. — Soli Deo Gloria; “To God alone, the glory.”  


The musical gifts he offered the world are monumental.  Leonard Bernstein said, “Once you do get to know Bach’s music well enough to love it, you’ll find you love him more than any other composer.”  I want to visit Germany one day — to sit in the cathedrals where he played, both large and small, and imagine him at the organ.


I have always found it uplifting to steal away to a quiet room in my house and blast Bach’s St. Matthew Passion or Toccata & Fugue in D minor on the speakers until my soul vibrates.  Even now when I sit down to practice, I like to warm up with his Inventions, numbers 13 and 8.  They get my brain and sluggish fingers moving like nothing else can.  You will no doubt hear Bach’s influence reflected in my piano arrangement of ‘How Firm a Foundation.’    


Fun fact: My initials are TACH which happens to rhyme with Bach. So … yeah.


No wonder I love him so.




Click HERE to download free sheet music 

Wednesday, February 1, 2023

Amazing Grace

Amazing Grace how sweet the sound,

That saved a wretch like me!

I once was lost, but now I'm found;

Was blind, but now I see.


'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,

And grace my fears relieved;

How precious did that grace appear

The hour I first believed!


Through many dangers, toils, and snares,

I have already come;

’Tis grace that brought me safe thus far,

And grace will lead me home.


When we've been here ten thousand years,

Bright shining as the sun,

We've no less days to sing God's praise

Than when we’d first begun.


Amazing grace how sweet the sound,

That saved a wretch like me!

I once was lost, but now I'm found;

Was blind, but now I see.



                               - John Newton








Click HERE to download free sheet music 

Wednesday, January 11, 2023

Father In Heaven We Do Believe

Father in Heav’n, we do believe

The promise thou hast made;

Thy word with meekness we receive,

Just as thy Saints have said.


We now repent of all our sin

And come with broken heart,

And to thy covenant enter in

And choose the better part.


O Lord, accept us while we pray,

And all our sins forgive;

New life impart to us this day,

And bid the sinners live.


Humbly we take the sacrament

In Jesus’ blessed name;

Let us receive thru covenant

The Spirit’s heav’nly flame.


  - Parley P. Pratt



Piano Prelude No. 14:  Father In Heaven, We Do Believe



Click HERE to download free sheet music