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This blog post is third in a series focusing on music for school & community. In 2015 I was honored to be the first Composer-in-Residence for the historic Washington Elementary School in Raleigh, North Carolina. Washington was founded in 1923 as the first public African American Graded and High School in Raleigh. The school is now a diverse "gifted and talented" elementary magnet school in the Wake County Public School System. In 2023 and 2025, Washington was named top magnet elementary school in the country by the Magnet Schools of America. My friend, Bo Reece, was the school's long-time and beloved music teacher.  I was commissioned to compose a flexibly-voiced school song with piano accompaniment and accessible parts for student orchestra and band. I began by getting to know the school through conversation with the students and faculty, asking them what makes their school special. I received hundreds of index cards on which they provided their responses. After reading them all, three things were clear: Washington Elementary, (and "school" in general) could be thought of as a place to be honored, a people who make a difference, and a time that's meaningful. These ideas gave form to the lyrics and inspired the music for the resulting piece: Sing of Our School.  The premiere of Sing of Our School was performed by student and faculty choir with piano, student band and orchestra. Providing a performance opportunity for the entire school community, the piece works well for school commencements, graduations, anniversaries, or any time school is celebrated. 2016 Premiere Performance Bo Reece, Conductor (video with lyrics below)  95th Anniversary T-Shirt with lyrics from Sing of Our School Because the song offers alternative lyrics and a creative opportunity to include any school's name in the piece, it may be effectively expressed by any school. 100th Anniversary performance
by a select school choir (includes lyrics in video) This is the second blog post that highlights music for school & community, though it also includes pieces for the church.  If you knew J. Paul Williams you are already smiling upon reading his name! You are remembering his unrelenting teasing and his signature Hawaiian shirts made by his wife, Donna. A constant jokester, I once saw Paul ride in a friend's car to a restaurant, then, giving silent commentary to her driving skills, quickly exited the car, got down on the ground and kissed the pavement! I have an array of envelopes from him addressed to me in various disparaging ways ("Horse Lips" was one of his favorites). The problem was that when most of these letters and packages were delivered, I lived in the small town of Walterboro, South Carolina. Paul's "creative" labels attached to my name were embarrassingly well-known among the staff in the town's only post office! His letters also always concluded with: "Hello to Cindy, who I like." I'm sure I am not the only "Horse Lips" out there, and I'm sure many other spouses were greeted in the same way at the end of letters. Paul brought much laughter into many lives! In the 1970's I was introduced to the composing duo of "Paul and Donna Williams." I sang their choral pieces in my church's youth choir and was enthused by their music. During my freshman year at Oklahoma Baptist University I was excited to unexpectedly meet them in person during the university's 1982 homecoming. I quickly discovered that Paul and I shared much in common. Along with his being an OBU alumni and composer, we were both members of the university's Bison Glee Club, and were similarly influenced by Warren M. Angell, the club's founder and dean emeritus of the fine arts college. (Warren Angell is the subject of another blog post: In Gratitude for Warren M. Angell.) After our first meeting, Paul and I kept in touch. In the early 1990's we both attended the Composer's Symposium at the Baptist Sunday School Board in Nashville, Tennessee. By this time, he had begun to focus more on lyric writing than composing. On the final day of that week-long event, Paul and I were asked by one of the editors from the Baptist publishing house to collaborate on a children's Christmas musical. Paul and I enjoyed creating Immanuel Will Come, for the Sunday School Board's "Children's Choir" curriculum (Van Ness Press, Inc., 1994). The musical includes seven pieces for unison/opt. two-part voices, accompanied by piano, Orff instruments, misc. percussion, and recorder. Because he was also a composer, Paul wrote lyrics with solid structure that would easily assist the compositional process. This made my creative work enjoyable, and I remember the publisher's editor commenting that she "did not have to change one note" (a rare comment for composers to hear). Paul's humorous personality came through in the words to one of the Christmas musical's pieces: Busy Bethlehem. Paul ingeniously penned lyrics that imagined a hectic Bethlehem, full of hurried people who had come for the census. The resulting chaotic music of the piece mirrored Paul's ideas and included "chant" (rap) parts for soloists and choir.  Following our first publication, Paul sent me other texts to set musically. One day I received a call from him asking me to write music for a piece to be included in the Houston Children's Choir Series published by Fred Bock Music. Paul was writing all of the texts for this series, asking a variety of composers to collaborate. I was thrilled to be a part, and I understood completely why Paul thought of me when he sent his text: Santa Claus Is Busy! With the success of "Busy Bethlehem," Paul decided to replicate the experience with his new lyrics about Santa Claus. We decided the new piece could also contain a choral chant/rap in the middle of the vocal sections. I included various percussion instruments to mimic the sounds of Santa's workshop as the children simultaneously chant two ostinato lines: "Busy, busy, Santa Claus is busy, busy, Santa Claus..." "Santa Claus is busy! Tell me, just how busy is he?" Above the ostinati, soloists exclaim: "He's got to feed the reindeer and hitch them to his sleigh. He's got to get the map out so he will know the way. He's got to file a flight plan with the F.A.A.! Santa Claus is busy! Busy night and day!" -Words by J. Paul Williams © 1997 Fred Bock Music Company Inspired by Paul's humor, my comical contribution to the piece was the suggestion that an audience member interrupts the seemingly endless cacophony by standing, raising their hand, clearing their throat, and asking: "Excuse me, just how busy is he?" -- to which the entire puzzled choir shouts back loudly: "He's BUSY!" Paul's fun lyrics and my music for two-part (or unison) voices with sleigh bells, misc. percussion, choral chant/rap, and audience member part, is published by Fred Bock Music. Santa Claus Is Busy! was recorded by the Houston Children's Chorus on it's live album: Christmas Is Here. I treasure a letter from Fred Bock himself who wrote: "I really like the piece!"
School or community children's choirs who wish to sing Santa Claus is Busy! this Christmas may find it through the Fred Bock Music Company or other music distributor. Though Paul passed in 2010, his inspirational and joyful life continues through school, community, and church choirs that sing his words. A choral piece for churches by J. Paul Williams & Larry E. Schultz: The Sea of Galilee (available on this site)  This church choir anthem for SATB voices and piano is a choral narrative of Mark 4:35-41. The introductory “soundscape” heard in the piano and voices aurally sets the scene for the dramatic story of Jesus and his disciples on the sea.
This blog post was originally published on the website of Pullen Memorial Baptist Church where I serve as Minister of Music. It features the creations of past and present church members and ministerial staff. I enjoy the craft of music notation and find it a valuable tool in Music Ministry. Throughout history, various systems of symbols representing musical sound were developed to help music be experienced and expressed. Interestingly, it was a medieval Italian Benedictine monk that is credited among others in establishing the western system of music notation. As a child I became intrigued with the writing of music when a visiting evangelist at my church inscribed a song on paper during the Sunday school hour and sang it the same day in worship! The tool of music notation not only allowed his song to be expressed on that day, but also to be published (and years later, sung by me in the same church for my ordination). When arriving at Oklahoma Baptist University, I found displayed in the music school the handwritten manuscripts of B.B. McKinney, a hymnwriter whose texts and music greatly influenced my childhood. I was amazed to see the original copies of his hymns, and couldn’t pass them in the hallway without stopping and studying them in wonder. One of my courses as a university composition major was on the art of music notation where I learned its intricate skills using a calligraphy pen, pencil, ruler and staff paper. I now use knowledge from that course to digitally notate music with a Microsoft pen on a computer pad, or with a Midi keyboard and notation software. Like a message sent out to sea in the proverbial bottle, music notated by hand or with computer preserves and passes down composers’ creations to many places and to future generations. Music notation has sent out meaningful music and words from Pullen, extending our ministry through time and space. Former Pullen Pastor, Edwin McNeill Poteat, Jr., is perhaps the first example of this through the writing and publishing of his hymn, “Eternal God, Whose Searching Eye Doth Scan.” Often referred to as the “Pullen Hymn,” the words and music of the hymn were created by Poteat and sung by church leaders from around the world at the first gathering of the World Council of Churches in Amsterdam in 1948. Through the communicative notation of music, the World Council of Churches was instructed and inspired by this Pullen hymn’s text as it boldly called the universal Church to be “wide as the world and broad as humankind.”  [Find out more about Edwin McNeill Poteat, Jr., and his compositions on the NC PEDIA site of the State Library of North Carolina] For many years, Pullen member, Pat Long, has expressed poetic theology and harmonic music through the creation of hymns. Her tune, “PULLEN,” is paired with her text, “Beloved God,” expressing an expansive view of the Divine as it encourages care for the earth and all of its creatures. In 1995, former Pullen Minister of Music, Michael Hawn, included “Beloved God” in a book of worship resources collected from a wide stream of Baptists (For the Living of These Days: Resources for Enriching Worship, Smyth & Helwys Publishing). It was this publication that first introduced me to Pat and other Pullen folk included in the book, and in 2009, I included Pat’s hymn in Pullen’s 125th anniversary collection, In Our Own Voice. But these are not the only books in which you’ll find it. Thanks to notation and publication, the Chinese Christian Literature Council in Hong Kong discovered “Beloved God,” and printed it in both Chinese and English in their hymnal (Hymns of Universal Praise, 2006). This hymn-prayer of Pat’s, inspired by her experience at Pullen, offers worshipers in Asia important words to sing.
[Pat Long’s hymn, “Beloved God” with tune name: “PULLEN,” in Chinese and English languages printed side-by-side in the Hymns of Universal Praise, 2006.] In January 2022 I received an email from hymn writer and editor, Laurence Waring, who introduced himself as the compiler of an online hymnal, “Singing the Faith Plus,” offered by United Methodists in the UK. This progressive European denomination was preparing to launch an initiative called “Walking with Micah,” and was searching for worship songs to help congregations seek and do justice. Finding Pullen’s In Our Own Voice hymnal online, he discovered Sally Buckner’s refrain, “We Shall Seek Justice,” (based on Micah 6:8), and was eager to gain permission to include it in the resource. Sally, a beloved Pullen saint and gifted poet, asked me years ago to arrange her tune, and through this distribution her creative legacy continues to be shared with the world and among Methodists in the UK. [“We Shall Seek Justice” in print and recorded versions, along with articles about Sally, Larry, and Pullen Church are included on the Singing the Faith Plus site. It is available on this site.] Pullen’s worldwide influence through song must also highlight the instructive work and world music arrangements of Michael Hawn. Michael was part-time Minister of Music at Pullen when he was a professor at Southeastern Seminary in the 1980’s/early 90’s. Michael once told me that he was grateful to Pullen for allowing him time for a study leave to learn from and bring back a variety of global worship music. With this beginning, his scholarship and leadership as a world music student and teacher grew to inspire countless church musicians, and his global music arrangements provide worshipers around the planet with resources from many cultures. [Find out more about Michael Hawn through his bio on the site of Choristers Guild, one of many organizations and publishers in which he contributes his expertise.] I never cease to be amazed when a musical creation of mine or someone I know is transmitted through notation to the other side of the globe. Years ago, I serendipitously discovered on YouTube a Taiwanese Children’s Choir singing one of my anthems. Though I composed the piece while living in Greenwood, South Carolina, the inscribed language of music transported it to children a world away! It’s amazing to think that a child may be humming one’s tune while playing on a distant playground. And, as a Minister of Music, it’s fulfilling to provide the global Church with words and music to expand thinking and experience. A baptism hymn of mine seeks to do that as it separates harmful substitutionary atonement theology from the ritual. Informed by Pullen’s baptismal liturgy and practice, the words sing of fear being washed away in the waters of full acceptance. Several denominations have included this hymn and others inspired by Pullen in their congregational hymnals.  [“With Water Freely Flowing” (published by Celebrating Grace, Inc.) is included with other Pullen-inspired hymns by Larry E. Schultz in the hymnals of the Mennonite Church, Community of Christ congregations, Reformed Churches, and progressive Baptists.]
Thanks to music symbols arranged with lyrics on a page, diverse congregations can explore the music, thoughts and theologies created by persons such as Sally Buckner, Michael Hawn, Pat Long, Edwin McNeill Poteat, and Nancy Petty, who once dictated through her singing a beautiful song I notated, added stanzas, and arranged. After being typeset, “As We Come to the Table of Love,” and its message of unrestricted inclusion has been sung by others, and is available for singing by churches the world over. [“As We Come to the Table of Love” is in included in the hymnal, Inclusive Songs for Resistance and Social Action. This collection and the hymn in single form are available on this site.] I celebrate the awareness that the written symbols of music notation can bring the global community together and minister through the expression of meaningful words and song. Thanks be to the Source of Music for lines and spaces, noteheads and stems, clefs, keys, and many other music symbols typeset on paper or in digital files – for with lyrics they preserve and pass on Pullen’s liberating message of love throughout the world. While the majority of my choral compositions have been created for church, I have also enjoyed opportunities to compose music for school and community choirs, striving to offer educators useful materials that provide enjoyable and effective teaching opportunities. This is the first blog post among several that will highlight some of these creations.  One of my most widely-preformed pieces was conceived for elementary and middle school choirs. "Little Firefly" is a setting of an imaginative poem by Grace Lee Frank. It offers a number of choral technique opportunities (two-part harmony and vocal independence, staccato and legato singing, expressive diction). Because Ms. Frank's poem sings of a firefly that "carries a star," the piece also incorporates the familiar words and tune to "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star," (but instead of "like a star up in the sky," the children sing: "like a firefly in the sky!"). A performance suggestion invites the singers to use penlights during the performance to simulate fireflies that dance among the choir. The piece is dedicated to my daughter, Kelly, and we've been grateful to hear many expressive performances of this piece in concerts and festivals. It has even been creatively performed as a piece for two woodwinds and piano by music education majors in recital at Shenandoah University. Beyond the USA and Canada, it has also been presented by children's choirs in Europe, Asia, and Africa. It gives me joy to think a child on a playground in a far-away land may be humming a tune I composed. There's something deeply fulfilling about such a thought, reminding how the publication, distribution, and teaching of music can provide meaningful global connections. performance of "Little Firefly" with penlights by Cantabile, Young Voices Toronto  Speaking of playgrounds, the "sequel" to "Little Firefly" was largely created while playing on a playground with my two children years ago. This was appropriate because, "Have You Ever Seen a House Fly?" is a playful piece for elementary and middle-schoolers. At the playground we brainstormed some of the play-on-words lyrics that ended up in the composition. Dedicated in "smiling memory" of my maternal grandfather who enjoyed joke telling, "Have You Ever Seen a House Fly?" is also dedicated to the Wake County Elementary Honors Chorus that premiered it the year I was its guest conductor. The piece sings of "horseflies" and "horses that fly," "houseflies" and "houses that fly," and so on. In trying to imagine "fruits that fly," my son, Ryan, came up with the idea of a "banana half-moon" and instantly became co-lyricist. Even the names printed on the publication are "play-on-words." My composer name listed is "Larry E. Schultz," but I used my full name as lyricist: "Lawrence E. Schultz." I did that because my son's middle name is also "Lawrence," so his lyricist credit underneath mine is: "Ryan Lawrence Schultz." To top it off, the dedication line identifies my grandfather: "Lawrence M. Yarbrough!" I imagine all of the various "Lawrences" give those who see the printed page cause to scratch their heads in wonder! I decided to replicate ideas from the creation of "Little Firefly" in this piece by combining a familiar folk song, "Shoo Fly! Don't Bother Me!" with the song's tune and by providing a performance idea. This idea involves placards on poles designed to picture the various "flies" in the song. At the appropriate time, the placards are lifted high to fly over the choir, allowing the audience to visualize the fun text. Along with the placards, a literal shoe attached to a tall pole is also suggested to represent the "shoe fly." One of the best laughs I've received from a song I've composed is seeing a community children's choir sing this piece in a magnificent cathedral where a young boy was waving a shoe on a tall stick in front of the ornate high altar! I doubt anything of the sort had ever been experienced in that space! Perhaps music-making like this reminds us to put life in perspective and remember to laugh. performance of "Have You Ever Seen a House Fly?" with placards (and shoe) by West Choir, South Hadley, MA, Children's Chorus Both "Little Firefly" and "Have You Ever Seen a House Fly?" are published by Alliance Music Publications. I hope both pieces offer educational opportunities along with some fun with flies!
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AuthorLarry E. Schultz is a Minister of Music, Composer, Hymn Writer, and Music Teacher. Archives
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