Author: Hilton Kean Jones

Composer and performer, retired college music professor, lyricist.

Focus, focus, focus…

​I’ve completely deleted my Facebook account (both the personal and the professional pages).
I’ve also deleted my Prime account at Amazon.
I haven’t decided yet about Instagram.
I’d already deleted my Twitter account long ago.
Youtube, Soundcloud, and here will be where I share my music to listen to.
My main online focus will continue to be publishing sheet music.
I’ll just spend my time making music and trying to get back into reading books again instead of doom scrolling endlessly through social media posts.
I’m just so appalled by the owners of Amazon and Facebook (Instagram) kowtowing to Trump.

We don’t have to play their game.

HKJ Pipe Organ Playlist

I’m in the process of tidying up my social media. I’ve written pieces I’ve even forgotten I’ve written, let alone posted anywhere.

I’ve also done some analysis of who buys what of my sheet music. Pianists seem to mainly buy my arrangements of songs, mainly folk songs. Organists mainly buy my original stuff! I would have guessed it would have been exactly the opposite.

Trying to build on what I’ve learned from my sales stats, I’m try to assemble all the pieces of mine on YouTube that use pipe organ (solo organ pieces and pieces for solo melody instrument and organ). Another thing I would have never guessed is the (free!) promotional power videos have on sheet music sales. Far more than purely audio sites.

Here’s a link to a playlist of videos of pieces of mine that use pipe organ: Organ Playlist

I’ll continue to add to that list as I find pieces I’ve forgotten, so if you like organ music you might check back from time to time.

A Christmas Concert

On Christmas Eve at my church job, I play an extended 30+ minute prelude. These are the pieces I’ll be playing: https://soundcloud.com/hilton-kean-jones/sets/a-christmas-concert-ive-piano. This is in an “album” order (best ones first), but at church, I’ll do it in exactly reverse order (best ones last since it’s an extended prelude and folks are pretty rowdy early on). That URL will be in the Xmas Eve Bulletin so if people want to hear the pieces again later, they can. These are all self-published arrangements of mine available at sheetmusicdirect and sheetmusicplus. This album cover was done by Nathan Jones, my son, for an earlier CDR release; the recordings linked to here are all new and I think I’ve done a better job of performing them and mixing them than the old CDR album.
#piano
#music
#christmas

Curoo, Curoo (Carol of the Birds) for pipe organ

I originally arranged this for trumpet and organ, then a friend asked for a cello and piano version. But, most of my sales are for solo piano or solo pipe organ music, so finally figured out how to keep the original counterpoint and do it for one person playing a pipe organ.
#pipeorgan
#organ
#christmasmusic
#carols

Sheet music available at https://www.sheetmusicdirect.com/en-US/se/ID_No/1659348/Product.aspx and https://www.sheetmusicplus.com/en/product/curoo-curoo-carol-of-the-birds-for-pipe-organ-22916771.html.

Curoo, Curoo (The Carol of the Birds) for trumpet & organ

I wrote this arrangement of a traditional Irish Christmas carol, Curoo, Curoo (The Carol of the Birds) for solo melody instrument and keyboard (in this demo, trumpet and organ). Sheet music available at https://www.sheetmusicdirect.com/en-US/se/ID_No/1656611/Product.aspx.


#Christmasmusic
#organ
#trumpet

Symphonic Waltz

I’m really not sure why I wrote this. Anyway…I did, for some reason. Jack Heller, now deceased, was Chair of the School of Music of the University of South Florida. He was an amazing musician, an outstanding violinist, a very good boss, and on the side, conductor of the Tampa Bay Symphony. Jack agreed to give me a readiing/recording with the orchestra. I was very appreciative of the opportunity and dedicated the piece to the Tampa Bay Symphony.

Well…someone on the orchestral board was highly offended. Thought the pieces was too modern and, if I remember correctionly, that its quality did not rise to the standard of The Tampa Bay Symphony. The board demanded in a legal letter I remove the dedication from all copies of the score and parts.

Jack and I were both shocked but also truly amused. What an “honor” to have one’s dedication of an orchestral work refused (in high dungeon style).

Ah well! Needless to say, they never performed the work. But, thank you Jack, for the opportunity.

Missa de Angelis (complete)

For this piece, instead of separate videos for each of the five movements, I made a single video of the movements played one after another as they would be in concert. I did this because, although the five movements each have their own form, as a group they form a larger, emotional structure that isn’t apparent unless they are heard together. For instance, the last movement, the Angus Dei, is my favorite movement because of certain rhythmic, harmonic, and contrapuntal things I felt pleased with having done. But, the movement by itself, doesn’t have the same meaning without being heard in the context of being the “coda” to the preceding four movements. As usual, the sheet music is available at sheetmusicdirect and sheetmusicplus.

https://www.sheetmusicdirect.com/en-US/se/ID_No/1084676/Product.aspx
https://www.sheetmusicplus.com/title/missa-de-angelis-digital-sheet-music/21996590

Madonna (a plainsong fantasy)

One thing every person in the arts learns–whether it be music, dance, visual arts, literature, whatever–is that there’s no accounting for what different people like or don’t like, including oneself. This isn’t one of my favorite pieces. It may be a surprise to people that people who’ve created something might not like it all that much. There’s a reason for that: when you create something, it’s not that you’re taking dictation from the Cosmic Radio or something, but you get lost in the process of writing and The Thing (in horror movie font) takes on a life of its own and It has a “way” it wants to be. Hard to explain. Anyway, as I was saying, this isn’t one of my favorite pieces, but for (to me) a surprising number of people, it’s the favorite of the pieces on the CD (Cantus) it’s from. For that, I’m grateful. It was hard to write and even harder to record. Nice to know someone likes it.

ROMA

Here are YouTube videos of the 5 movements of the suite of pieces titled Roma in performance order.

Attende Domine

Ubi Caritas

Salve Regina

Pange Lingua

Lauda Sion Salvatorem

1996 – Roma, all 5 movements, solo piano
AUDIO – Sheet Music Direct – Sheet Music Plus

Shortly, I’ll post a similar collection of YouTube videos, all in one blog post, of my setting of the complete Missa de Angelis and in another post a very long single movement piece that is a setting of many Marian plainchants, Madonna.

Thorny Desert

When my and my sister’s father was a kid in southern Mississippi, he learned music via the shaped note system. He was partial to the shaped note hymns in William Walker’s Southern Harmony, and Musical Companion.(I know that comma in there isn’t grammatically justified, but that’s the way the origiinal was, so I keep it there.) I’ve been writing a series of solo piano fantasies based on some of the tunes from Southern Harmony. I’d also done so earlier in an orchestrated version available on most streaming platforms such as Spotify.

The sheet music for this fantasy is available at Sheet Music Direct and Sheet Music Plus. I don’t write “serious” music anymore like the stuff I wrote back in the 90s and before. At my age now, like Matisse, I just enjoy writing the musical equivalent of his “simple” colored paper cut-outs. Amateur pianists keep buying my new sheet music which pleases me because it spreads the simple joy of making music oneself.

Sheet music available at
https://www.sheetmusicdirect.com/en-US/se/ID_No/1620072/Product.aspx
and
https://www.sheetmusicplus.com/en/product/thorny-desert-22865100.html