Who Are We, and How Did we Start the Process of transforming Psalm 119 to Music?

My name is Charles Matthews. I am an Architect living in Canyon Country, California. I started this project with my wife, not ultimately as a focus of getting the music out to people, but enjoying teaching our kids to memorize Psalm 119 together with my family. We would like to introduce you to the results of a project that has been over 14 years in the making.

My wife Stacey is the primary compositional driving force behind the project, and it was her considering the scripture and how they would interact to a majority of the tunes that ultimately brought them to realization.

As time progressed and I would hear my kids singing God’s word, I was encouraged just to be reminded of the various passages of scripture. I saw the value in the work she did in creating the music, and whenever we found an opportunity to push the music a little further, if we had the resources to do so, starting with a better recording of the sound. We would, at times, take dates and would be talking about the concepts behind the tunes that we were developing, refining the music as we went.

Eventually, we asked Mark Rice to create the lead sheets and the music to Aleph. Being extremely busy, he wasn’t able to finish, so he encouraged us to then go to a local college in order to find a person who may be able to pick up the ball, so to speak, and finish the composition. We were then able to find and ask Mandee Sikich to complete the work of arranging the lead sheets into pieces of music for us. Securing the permission to the scripture from Biblica was our final task. We were helped by their professional legal department and were able to complete the last step in the formal process. As technology improved, we were able to take the music files and turn them into sheet music, eventually getting them into a satisfactory format in order to publish them.

Our aspiration was to get the music into a format so that our children could both memorize it and also play it according to the tunes that we had made up. The music that you will have access to is the result of that process. So that you can hear the music, we have recordings of both the piano version without voices and the piano with voices.

Keep in mind, we aren’t professional graphic designers or vocalists… the music is simply provided here for your edification and blessing. If enough people like the work we have created, then we will be able to hire artists and designers to bring the full vision of this work into fruition, including bringing on board professional musicians and the like. In the meantime, we are providing the music free of charge to you in the hopes that it will bless and enrich your life. If you like it, we invite and encourage you to use it as a way of hiding God’s word in your heart and in the hearts of your children and spread it to others. So, we invite you to join us for the rest of the ‘ride’ so to speak as we see what God does in blessing His word going out. Sign up on the form below to start your subscription to, “How Majestic is Your Word: Scripture Memory Music for Children, featuring Psalm 119, 1 Thessalonians 5:15 and Ephesians 6:1-4”