As a Music Theory and Composition major in the Warren M. Angell College of Fine Arts at Oklahoma Baptist University I was privileged to study composition with gifted  composers, Nancy Hill Cobb and Michael Cox. They significantly expanded my musical horizons along with professors: Kathryne Timberlake, Bill Horton, Andre Lash, Wiff Rudd, Dan Hodges, and Bob Wood, who taught courses in Music Theory, Music History, Counterpoint, Orchestration, 20th Century and Electronic Music. Piano professor, Charlotte Martin, also focused my private instruction on my interest in composition and composers. Once, when I asked her to tell me about composer, Camille Saint-Saëns, she replied: "Well...he was my Godfather!" (Martin lived a fascinating life, and at one time was the youngest student of famous French pedagogue, Nadia Boulanger.) I received a magnificent education in Music Theory and Composition from these exceptional educators. Though my undergraduate degree was unusual for my career goal of church music ministry, its coursework has been invaluable to my creative and ministerial work. 

In a 20th Century Music course I was introduced to "aleatoric" or "indeterminate" music. This music results from compositions structured to utilize chance, randomness, improvisation, choices made by the performers, and other interactive factors. The outcome is that every performance of an indeterminate composition is unique. Often the musical score uses non-traditional notation to communicate the composer's creative desires. An assignment in this class was the composing of a simple piece incorporating aleatoric techniques. For this composition I borrowed an idea from my young niece, Carrie, after witnessing her do an interesting thing at the piano. She would locate the manufacturer's name on the inside of a piano's keyboard cover and trace her finger from each letter of the name downward toward the keyboard, playing a consistent rhythmic pattern on whatever black or white key was directly below each letter or symbol. I envisioned how playing in this way on pianos of different manufacturers would create a different result each time. For example, "Yamaha" would produce a different set of pitches than "Steinway." I was grateful to Carrie whose imagination provided this idea that helped me meet the indeterminate requirements of my assignment. I called the resulting piece: "Nomenclature." 

Fascinated by indeterminate music, I wondered how I might one day make use of it in my work as a Minister of Music. When the 2020 pandemic silenced worshipers from singing and playing wind instruments in person, it was necessary to provide new and safe modes of music-making for congregational worship. During the pandemic, I led my gathered congregation to drum on the wood of pews, play body and rhythm instruments, hum in masks, and express worship through sign language. Remembering the indeterminate and electronic music I was exposed to in college, I created a congregational “Digital Gathering Song” with parts played by worshipers through their mobile phones. Offering the song in worship during the pandemic provided a safe way for worshipers to make music together. It also offers a means of congregational music-making for individuals reluctant to sing or who do not play an instrument.
 
Five different music files form the Digital Gathering Song and tonally complement each other. Fragments of the pentatonic tune, “HOLY MANNA,” associated with the text: “Brethren We Have Met to Worship,” are heard in a few of the files. As individual worshipers select specific files and play them simultaneously (pressing “play” at close yet random intervals), a unique indeterminate musical composition is heard resulting from various choices and chance as well as the particular acoustic environment. The digital music files can be placed on a page of the church or other website and accessed via Wi-Fi in the worship space. The webpage's URL and/or a QR code printed in a worship guide will provide worshipers easy connection to the files. A time of preparation is helpful to assist each congregant in pre-selecting a file with a title and mood that most closely represents how they are entering worship: with "joy," "concern," or a "mixture of feelings." 
 
Preceding the playing of the Digital Gathering Song, a Call to Worship exclaims that many different individuals from a variety of life-experiences gather to form one congregation. The Digital Gathering Song responds and musically expresses this reality as it combines the diverse sounds into one unique musical offering. As the digital song is played, individual worshipers hear how the music of others around them is either the same or different from their music, raising an important awareness that can provide an empathic and meaningful worship experience.   ​

Who Has Gathered? includes the Call to Worship and the five music files that create the Digital Gathering Song. It is available from LarryESchultz.com ​and may be effectively experienced in worship spaces, retreat settings, concert halls, and anywhere Wi-Fi is accessible.

On a late evening in 2022 when my cellphone’s caller ID displayed: “New Zealand,” I decided to answer, wondering if it could possibly be my new Facebook friend, William Livingstone Wallace. “’Hello, Larry?’  this is Bill Wallace" (It was!). I had recently written Bill a note expressing my appreciation for his prolific and progressive hymn writing, and he was calling to ask a favor.

After discovering my similar creative work, he asked if I would be interested in harmonizing “a hymn tune or two” for some of his texts. Bill quickly revealed: “I have Stage 4 Cancer, and along with finishing a book, I am trying to complete my body of hymns.” He was a gifted poet and tune writer but needed a composer to harmonize and typeset his work. With gratitude for what his thought-provoking words offered the world, I was honored to assist. When his first hymn arrived by email, the time constraint of our project was evident as I emotionally read his hymn text: “As Life Approaches Ending.”  In the months that followed, other late-night phone calls arrived from “New Zealand,” with the familiar “Hello, Larry?,” and my initial assistance with “one or two” hymns turned into ten.

The hymns poems of William Livingstone Wallace are cutting-edge, exploring themes of justice and peace, science and the cosmos, art and spirituality, the ecosystem, human society and more. A Methodist Pastor, charged with the responsibility of weekly sermons, Bill felt that hymns were the best way to present his radical thoughts as they allowed new ideas to “slide into the mind on the back of music!”

Bill joins other hymn writers who embrace the wonders and reality of science. At a time when science is revealing the significance of dark matter/energy, Bill’s hymn below expresses darkness as the place where truth, wisdom and the oneness of all reside. In a society whose metaphors harmfully inform our psyche that darkness is “bad” and light is “good,” Bill’s words instruct otherwise:

In the darkness lies the whole
For the parts all disappear.
In the darkness dwells the truth
Of the wisdom all can share.
 
All the lines merge into one,
All the colours quickly fade,
All the sounds to silence change,
All the dreams can be remade.
 
When the light and darkness join
We find all the parts belong
In the fullness myst’ry holds
Till our hearts are filled with song.
 
If in darkness we abide
With a heart devoid of fear
Each of us discovers then
God is present everywhere.
 
-Words © 2022 William Livingstone Wallace. Used by permission. Permission is granted by the author to freely reproduce and use (citing copyright information).

The calls from Bill eventually ended and, exploring the internet, I read of his death on February 26, 2024. His lifetime of work will continue to inspire, engage, and expand the minds of worshipers for years to come.

A Theological Statement

​And Jesus says:
"Whoever welcomes you welcomes me,
so, wherever you will go, I will be;
and, whatever you look like, 
​I will look like, too;
I will speak in your words 
and in everything you do.
Whenever – my advent is whenever –
my advent is whenever
you discover I am in you;
when you discover I AM in you!"

Years after being influenced and inspired by the work of hymn poet, Brian Wren (see previous blog post), I met Jann Aldredge-Clanton with whom I enjoyed a 23-year collaboration. Jann was a minister, author, English professor, lyricist, hymn poet, hospital chaplain and feminist theologian (quite qualified to write effective and prophetic words for the church!). In the spring of 2001, I heard Jann offer the Covenant Address for the Alliance of Baptists Convocation. She powerfully encouraged congregations to discover and reclaim images of the Divine Feminine – and to sing them in worship. She underscored the biblical foundations and the many reasons to sing of God as “She” and “Her” – not the least of which was to liberate all from oppressive patriarchy and to exclaim the truth that females are in the Divine Image.

Several months after hearing Jann’s address, I became Minister of Music for Pullen Memorial Baptist Church, Raleigh, NC. With her words still ringing in my ears and a congregation eager to sing of the Divine Feminine, I reached out to introduce myself to Jann. Revealing I was a composer, I asked if she had any texts I could set to music. On September 11, 2001 (a morning that was met with unspeakable tragedy), I discovered an email from Jann that included a hymn text for me to set. The text she sent, “Are You Good and Are You Strong?” was a theodicy (questioning the presence of goodness in midst of evil). The words were unbelievably timely and cathartic for the particular day on which I received them.

Our 23-year creative partnership resulted in a musical, curriculum, anthems, 6 song collections, and 450 hymns. Though I have provided new tunes and arrangements for many of Jann’s hymns, I have typeset all of them for our collections, and in doing so, have been a student of her ministry.  

On September 20, 2024, days after completing our sixth song collection, Jann died of ovarian cancer. Healing Streams: Inclusive Songs, Prayers, and Readings for All Ages, is now published and available to the world. Because Jann's prolific work has left a treasury of lyrics yet to be musically set, our creative work will continue. Jann will continue to speak through the vibrant voices of congregations and choirs.

In 1989, renown hymn poet, Brian Wren, led a conference at Southern Seminary. The weekend event turned out to be an educational and experiential milestone for me that included an unexpected celebration. At the conference’s opening event we sang from Wren’s brand-new collection, Bring Many Names,[1] .and my experience with the metaphorical language of worship was forever changed. For the first time I joined my voice with a gathered congregation to sing of the Divine Feminine. I was deeply moved when singing Wren’s hymn texts that imaged God as “Mother” and “Sister.” This was most likely due to my being the only son in my family raised by a strong mother and three older sisters, along with my caring father. Until that time, the hymns of my church experience were dominated by patriarchal language. That evening I realized with conviction that the words we sing either oppress or uplift humanity. With eagerness to learn more, at a reception that followed the hymn-sing I excitedly purchased Wren’s new book, What Language Shall I Borrow? God-Talk in Worship: A Male Response to Feminist Theology.[2] The understanding and inspiration gained from this book would prove to be incalculable in my life and work.

Dr. Wren inscribed the book’s flyleaf for me and my wife: “Signed on a night of good news! Cindy & Larry Schultz, Shalom! Brian Wren 22/9/89.” His inscription details memorable things about that night. The date commemorates that my wife and I had been married for just over 3 months, and this was the first professional event we eagerly attended as a married couple. An added joy for us was that the conference was held in the school’s music building connected to the seminary chapel where we had met three years earlier and where our wedding service had recently taken place. Wren’s “night of good news” inscription refers to the fact that when walking into the reception, my hymnology professor, Dr. Hugh McElrath, came to me to shake my hand and say: “Congratulations on your hymn making it into The Baptist Hymnal (1991)!” "What!" I joyfully exclaimed. (Dr. McElrath, who was on the hymnal’s committee, did not realize I had not yet heard that a hymn text I had written for his class[3] was going to be included.) Still on an emotional high from singing the hymns of Brian Wren, I was overjoyed to hear that my first hymn would be published. As news of this surprise spread around the room, the congratulations of many friends grew to become a large group hug that moved around the room reminding us of the last scene of The Mary Tyler Moore Show! With his congratulations, Dr. Wren also asked me to send him a copy of the hymn for review. As he traveled home following the conference, he kindly composed a letter of suggestions and encouragement regarding the hymn and my writing.

Everything about that evening was exciting and memorable. It was indeed a “night of good news” in many respects, including my awakening to the good news of feminist and intersecting theologies in my own ministry. This experience was foundational to my creative work that would follow, including my connection and collaboration with feminist theologian, Dr. Jann Aldredge-Clanton, which I celebrate in the next blog post.

Epilogue:
After my initial introduction to Brian Wren at the Southern Seminary conference, I was fortunate to learn from him at two other conferences during my early years in church music ministry.

In 2003 it was a dream-come-true to have the opportunity to compose music for one of Brian Wren's hymn poems, "The Name We Have Begun to Know." My congregation, Pullen Memorial Baptist Church, Raleigh, NC, hosted Dr. Wren for a weekend conference and commissioned from him this interfaith text for which I provided the tune, LOVE-SONG. It is published by Hope Publishing in Wren's hymnal, Christ Our Hope, and was included in a recording of selected hymns from the collection.[4]

Many strands of one’s life experience are woven together in the writing of a hymn. An example is my hymn text, Come and Feast, for All Are Welcomed, that was informed by experiences from my childhood and beyond.

A hymn is a poem of faith that succinctly and creatively expresses the author’s theologies and ideas. When sung by a congregation, a hymn provides worshipers an expression for praise, contemplation, prayer or proclamation. As an invitation to and a calling from the table, Come and Feast is a proclamation. It offers my words for worshipers to collectively preach. I find fulfillment in this mode of prophetic ministry – of creating sermons in hymn-form that congregations amplify through their singing at various times and in many different places. The video above presents an exclamation of the hymn by South Main Baptist Church, Houston, Texas.

Below are the four stanzas of the hymn with information on the personal experiences that inspired them.

Stanza 1:
Come and feast, for all are welcomed
at God's table spread with love.
Come proclaim God's grace and goodness
in, around us, and above.
Come and feast, for all are welcomed
at God's table spread with love.

In my childhood church the “Candy Lady” would often pass me a peppermint during worship though the communion elements were always passed by me until after the time I was baptized. This practice of offering the bread and cup only to the initiated was an unfortunate practice that is continued by some churches today. (Considering the very tiny “chiclet” of bread and “thimble” of juice that was offered, the Candy Lady’s peppermint was a much tastier communion anyway!) The exclusion of individuals from the Lord’s Supper as it was called, was also practiced by the church I attended as a teenager. Not only were the unbaptized excluded, but, propagating ideas of “Landmarkism,” only the baptized members of our local church could partake. I was grateful to learn from my mother that my maternal grandmother did not agree with this exclusion from the table. Fast-forward to the church I presently serve, and communion looks very different. Young children, the unbaptized, first-time visitors are all welcomed to the table along with persons of other faiths or no faith, and of every description. These varied experiences are the reason Stanza 1 proclaims the welcome of all.

Stanza 2:
Here we nurture and encourage
as we share this common meal,
while we foster deep communion
and our inner-selves reveal.
Here we nurture and encourage
as we share this common meal.

In seminary I became aware of the Christian “Love Feast” – a communal meal where early followers of Christ would combine their food as an offering and freely share it. From my experience as a churchgoer, I envisioned these ancient Love Feasts to be like potluck dinners-on-the-ground. Or perhaps they were like the first fellowship meal my wife and I attended at our church in Walterboro, South Carolina, where we sat around newspaper-topped picnic tables on which a “Beaufort Boil” would be dumped, and we’d eat with our hands. At the same congregation, I instituted periodic Love Feasts when the congregation would gather on a Sunday night in the fellowship hall for a simple meal. Tables were connected and set up in a long rectangle, and participants sat around the outside so that everyone could see each other. Those who came to the feast brought all kinds of delicious finger foods to share family style as we reconstructed the Love Feast tradition. Together we ate, conversed with those beside us, sang simple refrains, and viewed the entire experience as communion. These Love Feasts provided the imagery conveyed in Stanza 2.

Stanza 3:
See the chalice lifted upward;
smell the fragrant, broken bread;
taste the gifts from field and vineyard;
hear the words that Jesus said:
"Eat and drink, and in remembrance
touch your souls with wine and bread."

I am among many ministers who were privileged to study worship with Dr. Donald Hustad at Southern Seminary. He taught that “full-orbed” worship included a “Service of the Word,” a “Service of the Table” and engaged all of the human senses. Stanza 3 is a direct result of his teaching as I included the five senses in the text. In liturgical practice, this stanza also offers the “words of institution.” It can be sung freely by a choir or soloist while those serving communion lift the chalice and break the bread at appropriate points in the stanza. (Having this stanza sung by a choir or soloist allows the congregation to view the action.)

Stanza 4:
With the Spirit-blessed commission:
"Go and serve this meal to all,”
take its love and peaceful vision
into every banquet hall.
Go and serve as nourished people,
gladly feeding one and all!

Stanzas 1-3 can be meaningfully sung as a Call to the Table with Stanza 4 reserved for a Sending Out. As seen in the video below, First Baptist Church, Asheville, North Carolina, has dramatized this final stanza in a magnificent way. During the singing of Stanza 4, a family comes to the sanctuary communion table, places upon it a checkered cloth and replaces the communion set with an open picnic basket and ice chest with water. Then, as the congregation sings “Go and serve…feeding one and all,” the family rushes down the central aisle, leading the worshipers out to minister. This dramatization transforming “formal” communion into a “common” experience offers the perfect visualization of this stanza. I’ve heard hymn poet, Brian Wren, tell the story of serving communion to a young person who, being literally hungry, broke off a large chunk of the communion loaf to eat. This story forever changed the way I think of communion and inspired me to include the “feeding of all” in this final stanza. It presents communion as a justice-call to feed the hungry and as a vision of peace to be replicated wherever we go.​

In 2008, I created a hymn text on baptism to submit to a Methodist church’s hymn search, and am grateful that the hymn has found use in a variety of denominations. Published in the Celebrating Grace, Community of Christ Sings, and Voices Together hymnals, “With Water Freely Flowing” expresses a progressive and ecumenical view of the ritual of baptism.
 
Stanza 1:
With water freely flowing
we celebrate new birth,        
in sacred sign expressing              
God’s love for all on earth.                                        
The Well of Living Water
springs up for us this day;
engulfed by love’s acceptance,
our fears are washed away.
 
Stanza 1 is about water. The opening phrase can refer to the “first baptism” of all humanity in the water of the womb that “freely flows” as it breaks and the labor of “new birth” begins. Water also flows in a baptismal river or immersing baptistery, or, it flows from a pitcher with water poured over or sprinkled upon the head. It flows in the rain that baptizes and nurtures the earth. The idea of “freely flowing water” also references my own baptism, before which the baptistery actually overflowed and flooded the church building!
 
Adding to the ecumenical nature of the hymn, the idea of baptism as a sacrament and “sign” of love is sung in Stanza 1. But perhaps most importantly, this stanza separates itself from other baptismal hymns by removing the act of baptism from harmful atonement theology as it expresses the washing away of “fears” instead of “sin.” As such, baptism becomes a celebratory welcome into a loving community.
 
Stanza 2:
The Spirit, swiftly soaring,
descending as a dove,
conveys the startling Presence                 
on all whose vow is love.
​The Breath of God within us                                     
enlivens and sustains,
beyond this rite of passage         
with us always remains.               
 
Stanza 2 focuses on the Spirit. It sings of the Spirit as a “descending dove” and “startling Presence” (from the gospel narrative of Jesus’ baptism), as well as “The Breath of God.” When sung by a congregation, the sibilant sounds created by the alliterative opening lines of this stanza create the effect of the Spirit’s breath or wind.
​
This stanza also connects with the liturgical practice of spoken vows accompanying baptism.

Stanza 3:
By water and the Spirit
baptized in Christ, we rise
to walk new paths unfolding
before our opened eyes.
We journey from this moment,
faith’s pilgrimage embrace.                                      
By Spirit and by water                                                
we feel and sense God’s grace.
 
Stanza 3 brings both water and Spirit together in an effort to respond to my experience with another hymn. The Baptist hymnals of my childhood included “The Church’s One Foundation” by Samuel John Stone. In those hymnals we sang of the church: “She is his new creation by Spirit and the Word.” I first became aware of the practice of altering hymn texts when I discovered that other hymnals used Stone’s original words: “She is his new creation by water and the Word.” This hymn text alteration called to my attention a “baptismal dichotomy” – an ecclesiastical difference of opinion over the most important components in the act of baptism. “With Water Freely Flowing” reunites these dissected elements, exclaiming: "By Spirit and  by water!" (echoing Jesus' words to Nicodemus in John 3:5). 

In the Celebrating Grace and Community of Christ Sings hymnals, “With Water Freely Flowing” is effectively paired with “MERLE’S TUNE” by Hal H. Hopson, and in the Voices Together hymnal it has been given a beautiful setting with Amanda Husberg’s tune, “OPEN HEART.” Churches who do not use the hymnals in which “With Water Freely Flowing” is included may reprint and broadcast the hymn via licenses through ONE LICENSE or CCLI. 

Welcome to LarryESchultz.com and Resonate! – a site offering downloadable and published music for church, school and community groups, and a blog that offers notes on the music and other items of interest related to communal music and music-making.

I describe my work as “communal,” because both my ministry and compositions seek to assist groups (choirs, congregations, orchestras, bands) whose individual participants make music together. I also use the word “communal” to communicate that all persons are musicians and are welcomed into the experience of music-making. It is a part of what makes us human, and is not an exclusive opportunity for the “trained.”

A seminary course on “The Philosophy of Music Ministry,” taught by gifted educator, Milburn Price, instilled within me the importance of developing and communicating a philosophy that supports and meaningfully directs my work. Though my initial philosophy of music ministry was bound to church history, church tradition and the Hebrew/Christian scriptures, it has evolved through the years to include more.

Ever since reading John Shelby Spong’s book, “A New Christianity for a New World,” I have been on a quest to provide a music ministry and creative works that break down religious and social barriers. Spong encourages all to walk so deeply through their own tradition and into their humanity that the tribalistic boundaries fall away. We then discover our connections with other people, and the oneness of all.

Like the efforts of present-day scientists who are seeking a “theory of everything,” I’ve been seeking such a theory related to communal music-making, and have borrowed three words that I hope for now succinctly state my ideas: Resonance, Transcendence and Relevance.  So far, I find that these three words encompass the goals and outcomes of communal music-making, whether it be in church, other faith groups, school or community settings. (Though sometimes needed for clarity, I hesitate to use the words “sacred” or “secular” as I find them to be inadequate descriptions that can bring further division.) I’ll speak to Transcendence and Relevance in future posts, but want to briefly express my thinking on Resonance (and therefore, the name of this blog: Resonate!). 

Though science cannot yet empirically prove it, “String Theory” as posited by quantum physicists is a beautiful description that I think can pertain to a philosophy of music-making and music ministry. String Theory suggests that the smallest elements of literally everything are tiny vibrating “strings.” Smaller than other sub-atomic particles, these vibrations make up all that is – from the computer keyboard on which I am typing to my own human cells. These vibrating strings may indeed turn out to be the common denominator of all things.

Not only are the smallest elements of life thought to be vibrations, but in 2003, astronomers discovered that a supermassive black hole in space was producing sound waves that created the deepest note yet detected from any object in the known universe!

Human biology and anthropology come in next. We humans have evolved with lungs to fill with air and a larynx through which to pass that air causing vibrations of sound. As humanity grew, we developed language out of that sound – words that convey meaning.

After considering all of this, I then am in awe, and wonder as I think: “If the tiniest quantum element as well as one of the largest known objects both vibrate with sound (music), and if humans ‘in the middle,’ also have the capacity to resonate sound…then there must be something very formational and primal to the experience of music-making. It must be foundational to our humanity, it must connect us with ‘everything,’ and there must then be benefits to music therapy, music ministry and communal music-making of any kind!”

I'm not alone in these scientific ponderings. I know of at least two other hymn writers, Brian Wren and Jann Aldredge-Clanton, who have included the specific idea of String Theory in hymns, and others like Shirley Erena Murray, William L. Wallace, and Thomas Troeger express ideas from science in their hymn poetry. I have connected scientific reality with faith-language metaphor in my hymn, Spirit of God, Spark of Creation.  

When groups gather to make music, sound waves from one individual are produced and carried through the air until they are detected in the ear cells of other individuals. There is then an instant and physical connection! Music-making literally unifies and connects individuals into one community – a good foundation on which to build a more peaceful world. (For choral expressions that connect to this idea, see my compositions: Where Two or Three, May a Song Remain, Gathered Here to Share Our Music, Tear Down the Walls and others.)

And so, the name of this blog, Resonate!, refers to our human capacity to make music with all that is, and the exclamation point reminds us to do so with joy and energy. The name also reminds us that when we add words to our music, we can give emphasis and meaning to important ideas and philosophies with which we “resonate.” (Several congregational hymns I hope assist progressive communities in resonating their ideas are: We Are a People on a Journey, From Wisdom Emerging, and A Stranger, Starving on the Street).

Not all of the words to every composition I’ve written are as progressive as I’d desire them to be, but even these creations represent a part of my journey and can reveal an ever-evolving progression – one that continues and is life-long. I hope on this site you find a choral anthem, congregational hymn or instrumental selection that is useful in your community, and I look forward to offering additional works in the days to come.