Gaither Gospel Classics: Contemporary Settings of Cherished Songs Written by Bill and Gloria Gaither (Sacred Performer Collections)

I'm just starting to use this book for evening services at church. I am organist for both traditional and contemporary morning worship, but use piano for the less formal one at night. Gaither music is a great favorite with most older Evangelicals, but it is not easy to find slightly-fancy piano arrangements of it. This fits the bill perfectly. I wish all instrumental music would indicate difficulty level. Although I never took many years of lessons as a child, I have played in churches for over a half century, and am somewhere between late intermediate and early advanced for piano. I suspect that is what this is. I can read through these easily, but need to practice them before playing them for a service. The arrangements are rather traditional, though with key changes and some interesting chords. They are not quite as lilting as, say, Tom Fettke music, but still quite nice. I believe I will get a lot of use from this book and am happy with the purchase.

Some of the Gaithers’ music nicely arranged for early intermediate/intermediate level, solo pianists. They have been well received at my church as preludes before service and for quiet reflection during service.

First, let me say that I have several books arranged by Carol Tornquist, and I generally love her arrangements. And I was raised on Gaither gospel - my mom played their records every Saturday while we cleaned house and did chores, and our church can sing those songs by heart. So I was incredibly excited to get this book. I have several books by Fred Bock with lots of Gaither songs, but I was looking for something new and a little more contemporary. I guess I got it....In her introduction, Ms. Tornquist comments that she hopes these new contemporary arrangements will please and that the performer and audience will appreciate her variations on the melodies. That caught my attention and concerned me slightly, but I assumed these would be slight variations, like how performers on "The Voice" or "American Idol" make slight changes to the songs they are covering to "make it their own." I started with "He Touched Me" and quickly found that Ms. Tornquist definitely took liberties with the melody, but the song was still mostly recognizable. As I continued to work through the book, though, I found that almost all of the songs have sections that are recognizable and close to the original, but there are other sections that I am hard-pressed to identify the song. Please note - I don't have trouble playing the songs and would consider myself an advanced pianist. I play for our Sunday worship services every week for almost 35 years. I was able to sight-read every one of the songs in this book, and I am typically quite adept at bringing out the melody line to "sing out" above the accompaniment and harmony. But all of these songs have sections that have rewritten the melody to be almost unrecognizable. In fact, I played several pieces on Sunday for prelude before service, and very few people in the congregation could identify them, and these are people who know Gaither songs as easily as they can sing "Jesus Loves Me." My best analogy here is that these arrangements are like "The Message" translation of the Bible - unique, contemporary, mostly interesting, but very divergent from the original. Not that this is a bad thing - some people may be very happy with these new melodic divergences. I will still make use of the book and am generally satisfied, just not as excited about the arrangements as I had expected to be.

So many great songs, good arrangements, not too difficult for my intermediate (at best) piano skills. I'm very pleased with this purchase and enjoy playing and singing and performing songs from this collection.

Very lovely arrangements! I've never been disappointed by Carol Tournquist's tasteful talent. Rich-sounding without being frustrating. I highly recommend this.

I am having a lot of fun with these. Very creative arrangements. I am intermediate and these are challenging but doable.

I love Gaither music. I do not care for these arrangements. And this is just too easy for me.

The arrangements are contemporary and beautiful. I have really enjoyed playing the pieces in this book and using it for church services.

Klasse Buch , Vater hat sich sehr gefreut , hat alles super geklappt.

Strange arrangements. No chord for guitar accompanists.

Great

I was so looking forward to receiving this book but was so disappointed. I sing but don't play piano, but can follow a tune with words underneath the music. I couldn't believe it when I opened the book and found the words written out on 2 pages at the back of the book!! Unfortunately I'm not going to be able to learn these songs now. Hey ho!!