Seven Plus Orchestra Series

Back when I was at First Baptist Jacksonville, we started the orchestra in 1971. We wanted to find ways to use band and orchestra instruments in worship, so we opened the door for players to come and play in the worship setting of our church.

However, there was no instrumental music of any kind available for the church! Also, there were no published choral anthem orchestrations at that time either. When we began our instrumental ensemble at the church, the only thing we could play was directly out of the hymn book with the congregational singing. I taught the musicians that played transposing instruments how to transpose their part from the hymn book.

After a couple years of doing that, I felt the need to create something for the instrumental ensemble to play other than the hymn book, so I asked the minister of music if I could begin to create some orchestrations to go with the choral anthems that were being sung. He was very happy about that idea.

I was a school teacher at the time, and had very limited time during the week, so the only time I could create those arrangements was on Saturday for our worship service the next day. I had to handwrite all of the parts and bring them in the next day where we would rehearse them during Sunday School. The first time the minister of music heard the arrangements was when he gave the downbeat in the worship service!

I thought it would be nice to write some instrumental features for our ensemble. Our instrumentation was so unique that I learned to create arrangements that were flexible enough to fit our 'odd' group of 7 or 8 players.

Those beginning arrangements evolved into what is now known as the 7 Plus Orchestra series, which is based around a core of 7 brass instruments with the potential of woodwinds, strings, and percussion, and using piano as a significant core instrument of the group.

The head of the Crescendo Music Publishing company visited our church in 1978 and saw a video of one of our worship services and was very impressed by the choir and the fact that we had an instrumental ensemble (which had grown to about 20 players). He asked me what music the orchestra was playing and I told him that I arranged it. He said we should consider publishing it, so the 7 Plus Orchestra Series was born. I really wanted to use "7 Up", but there was a copyright issue (obviously). Today there are 17 arrangements in the 7 Plus concept. This music is very good for a smaller church orchestra, but it also works very well for a larger group.