Category Archives: Resources

Good Shepherd Institute April 2011 Newsletter

If you’ve been a visitor to this site over the past few years, you’ll find I often reference the work of the Good Shepherd Institute at Concordia Theological Seminary.  They have been a real blessing to me in my growth as a church musician.

One of the things I look forward to from the Institute is their semi-annual newsletter.  The following email from Kantor Resch provides info on what to look for.  Definitely download a copy.  And, you’ll get to read more about this year’s Conference theme.  Just a hint: it is tangentially related to a certain “royal” event happening this Friday.

GSI Newsletter

Dear Friends:

I am happy to announce that the April issue of HIS VOICE is now available to download. This is the official electronic newsletter for the Good Shepherd Institute, and you will find it located at our website His Voice.

In this issue, you will find out about the upcoming Good Shepherd Institute Conference and the Organist Workshop. Articles on church music resources are provided by Kantor Kevin Hildebrand. Professor John Pless gives commentary on new publications for pastoral theology, while Dr. Daniel Zager makes recommendations on books and sacred music recordings.

You may also download the April issue by clicking here.

If you believe other people would benefit from receiving an email inviting them to explore His Voice, send an email to HisVoice@ctsfw.edu. Please include their email addressed, first and last names.

Blessings in Christ,

Rev. Richard Resch

March Resources

Today’s post is a mixed bag of several resource items that have caught my eye over the last few weeks.

HIS VOICE

The Good Shepherd Institute has recently published the bi-annual edition of their newsletter “His Voice” that focus on resources for pastoral theology and sacred music.  In it you’ll find information on the next GSI conference (and the creative way they came up with the topic), book/article recommendations from John Pless, choral recommendations from Kantor Kevin Hildebrand, and music/article recommendations from Daniel Zager.

Continue reading →

LSB Resources: Additional Indexes

For a number of years I’ve had lofty goals to catalog my music library — not just the books, but also the individual pieces within the book, associated hymn tunes, composers, when I used a piece, etc.  While I haven’t made much progress on the cataloging, awhile back I did create the underlying structure that would link everything back to Lutheran Service Book and the associated hymn tunes.  Through that project I had the data to create several indexes that had more detail than those provided in the back of the LSB editions — primarily around the hymn tunes used in LSB.

Continue reading →

Good Shepherd Institute

This past week I discovered that the Good Shepherd Institute has released the latest edition of His Voice, a newsletter of GSI that has a number of recommended resources for pastors, laity, and musicians.  I’d encourage you to download and scan through it (only 9 pages).

Of particular note are 3 pages devoted to the published resources of GSI, most of which are part of my own library.  These resources have been formative and valuable in my growth and continuing education as a parish musician.  I return again and again to the timeless essays of Walter Buszin.  The journals provide opportunities for personal study in worship, hymnody, and liturgy.  The Singing the Faith DVD is the closest thing you’ll get to a confessional Lutheran music video.  My favorite video selections are Lord, Let at Last Thine Angels Come with the mural and Wide Open Stand the Gates from a hymn festival.

It has been a blessing to be part of the continuing “conversation”, if only through the words of the essays, journals, and DVD.  So, I say thank you to Kantor Resch and Dr. Just for their vision and making these resources available for the church at large, and in particular pastors and parish musicians.

Coil Binding! The Musician’s Friend

This morning I took four music books (Augsburg Organ Library) and my LSB Propers of the Day down to Office Depot to have their binding cut off and replaced with coil binding. Only $3.00 a book – not bad.

I’ve written about this in a previous post, but I think it bears repeating. Why do music publishers publish a book that will be put on a music rack that will not stay open on its own? It seems ridiculous to have to rebind the books before you can even use them.

P.S. I had my LSB Propers of the Day rebound just as a matter of convenience — so I’m not “unhappy” with CPH on that item. On the other hand, CPH could look at how they bind their Songs of the Gospel (preludes on Luther and Paul Gerhardt hymns) — those books were rebound as soon as I got them a few years back.