Dr. David R. Erb from Christ Church in Moscow, ID, has produced an excellent album called Cantica Sanctorum with 50 of the Psalms, sung verbatim from the NJKV (Psalm 14, 23, and 53 are out of the KJV) so you’re memorizing while singing!
They’ve released recordings for a number of these songs before, I’ve been singing them for quite a while and they’ve really blessed me. However, now the full set has now been recorded quite beautifully with instruments and a choir, and it just came out today, check it out!
So many favorites among these, but my favoritest is probably 134, which we sometimes sing as a closing doxology. And my favorite line of David’s music is the first half of Psalm 13:6. He just captures that moment of transition perfectly.
And while we wait, I’ve found a good verbatim Psalm 119 from the KJV composed and arranged by Frederick Steinruck, Michael Misiaszek, and Michael E. Owens. I’ve been memorizing it slowly over the last few months. I’ve added words and uploaded it to YouTube:
Thanks. This group is easier to follow along with. I can tell what their saying.
The Cantica Santorum reminds me of Handel’s Messiah, for which I’ve heard many recommendations. I can’t tell what their saying much of the time. I don’t doubt familiarity makes it better.
I still prefer carefully restructured songs, more singable and still faithful.
But I agree these chant-like songs would be helpful for memorization.
I don’t know the first two gents, but Michael Owens has done TONS to get more musical settings out into the world. Here’s his website: https://www.genevanpsalter.com. He and I collaborated on this one (he chose and arranged the tune, and I did the text):
He and I have been in communication as well, he’s type-setting the Cantus 2! He also sent me all of the music he’s done. Also, his stuff is free over on wordmp3.
I listened to my recording of Michael E. Owens singing it, great work! I’ve uploaded it to YouTube (as unlisted) here it is for those of us like me that can’t read music!
Thanks! I thought I had the recording, but I could only find a midi of the tune (and a full recording of a hymn we did). I guess I never heard this one, 'cuz I think I’d remember wondering why he stopped before the last verse…
Working on the Cantus was how I got to know Michael. I did an initial copyedit of the first one, which ended up delayed after we ran into some…issues…with some silly people.
Yeah, he never sings all the verses when he makes those recordings. I think it’s because of the large number that he records, he just gives enough to give a feel for the song.
Oh, neat! Haha, shoot, I imagine licensing issues or something?
That’s fair! They’re easier to sing along to when you have the part of the Bible open that they’re singing, I embed the text of the Bible as “lyrics” in iTunes for the particular song, and then I can view the lyrics while singing with them on my phone.
I also have recordings where just Dr. David Erb is singing them, and it’s much easier to hear the words, these are free and available online, but I’ve put them all together in a zip file for convenience, download here.
