Psalm 63: I Long for You (Balhoff, Daigle, Ducote)

"I Long for You / As Morning Breaks" composed by Balhoff, Daigle and Ducote. © 1981 Damean Music. 

Let me tell you about my experience this week with the above song (first published in 1981). 

I lead singing (often with both voice and nylon guitar) at one and sometimes two churches on weekends. We chose this setting by Balhoff, Daigle and Ducote for the 12th Sunday in Ordinary Time. Note that the original was written in 4/4 time. Well, my keyboard player at St. Mary's, Larry, had done an adaptation in 3/4 (waltz) time several years ago for a Polka Mass. He sent me his Sibelius score and a practice MP3 he had made "for accordion and piano." I did not like the feel of it. I did a practice recording in my basement studio in order to convince myself that it could be smoothed out with less oom-pa-pa. Here it is. I sang all the parts in this basement studio recording, including soprano Hildegard.

Shortly after I did the recording, I discovered the original 4/4 arrangement online and figured we better do it the way it was intended by the original authors. 

The 4/4 version (true to the original published version), was captured live with my good old Zoom H2 recorder today, 6/18/2016, at St. Mary's Church in St. Paul, MN. Here it is. I play guitar and lead with voice. Larry plays piano.

Which meter do you like better for this psalm – 3/4 or 4/4?

One final note: Larry's 3/4 Polka arrangement was written in F, a full step lower than the original key of G.

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