Collaboration Curve

Posted on November 4, 2021 by Linda Bonney Olin

After a two-year hiatus while I worked on other projects, my Holy GhostWriter plunked me back into hymn-writing this year, with an exciting new twist!

Thanks to Facebook groups, YouTube, and the Hymn Society in the US & Canada, I’ve connected with several composers to work on new musical settings for texts I originally published with public domain tunes and for some brand new texts. In addition, I’ve written melodies for a couple of my newest hymns, with harmonization help from Diva Daughter, Theresa Olin (aka The Inexorable Juggernaut of Music Theory).

It’s been quite a roller coaster ride, careening up, down, and around the learning curve of collaboration. I mean, it’s one thing to tweak a hundred-year-old tune written by a guy who is, shall we say, in no position to argue with my choices. It’s quite another to communicate and negotiate with a living composer who brings a different vision and style to my lyrics, and who is as new to the art of collaboration as I am. Fortunately, my HGW has blessed me with partners who possess a gracious heart as well as musical skills.

Our newest pieces are not going public yet, in order to preserve eligibility for competitions and publishers which require unpublished work. Stay tuned for those!

Meanwhile, I hope you’ll enjoy the lovely new setting written by talented young composer Jared Bernotski for my text “How Long Is the Longest Night.” Jared himself sings HLITLN, accompanied by Cade Johnson, in this video. (Lyrics below.)

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Words and Music: Which Comes First?

Posted on August 27, 2018 by Linda Bonney Olin

Which comes first, the words or the music?

Well… yes. Like the chicken and the egg, a hymnwriter can go either way.

Words First

For me, writing a new hymn often begins with an idea for the words (aka text or lyrics). Perhaps some situation in my life or in the world around me suggests a musical parable. Perhaps my Holy GhostWriter prods me to explore a particular Bible passage or theological concept. Perhaps a hymn-writing competition specifies a theme or occasion to write about. Perhaps an intriguing turn of phrase begs to be rhymed and set to music.

Ideally, while I’m writing the words a good tune bubbles to the surface of my memory or imagination. If my verses have a commonly used meter (pattern of syllables per line), I might pick a suitable tune from the metrical index in the dog-eared back pages of my hymnal. Otherwise, a scrounge through the archives of public domain hymn tunes (and maybe a tweak or two to the existing notes) may be necessary to get the right musical setting.

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Faith Songs with Andrew Remillard

Posted on May 12, 2018 by Linda Bonney Olin

I’m tremendously excited to announce that pianist Andrew Remillard has completed the project of recording the hymns and faith songs in Now Sings My Soul: New Songs for the Lord. One hundred sixteen in all!

The recordings are posted as videos in a special playlist on Andrew’s popular YouTube channel. (A playlist is a collection of videos that YouTube will automatically play one after the other if the viewer selects the autoplay option.)

Andrew’s recordings are strictly instrumental, no singing. However, he displays the score (music + lyrics) as the visual on his videos, as you can see in the screenshot of his video for “Now Sings My Soul a New Song.”

In this way, my lyrics are being presented along with the music to a worldwide audience they never could have reached otherwise. Andrew’s Now Sings My Soul playlist has attracted more than a thousand views already. What a gift!