This is not a food blog, but this bust of enthusiasm can’t be contained. This is wonderful bread! A good friend and I went to Jo-el’s Kosher Market for lunch yesterday.
This is not a food blog, but this bust of enthusiasm can’t be contained. This is wonderful bread! A good friend and I went to Jo-el’s Kosher Market for lunch yesterday. Our lunches were great of course (I wish I knew what the subtle, fragrent spice was in the stuffed cabbage side). As we were standing in line to pay on the way out, one of the cooks brought two giant trys from the kitchen and put them on a shelf beside where we were standing. She saw the looks on our faces and she said, “which one do you want?” One tray was poppy seed the other chocolate. It was a tough decision let me tell you. I went with the chocolate. I refrigerated it over night (it was steaming hot when I bought it) and today I sliced in and put up the slices in individual deli supply sandwich envelopes to freeze. Rather than toast the frozen ones, this works best microwaved for 30 seconds and then eaten with a spoon or fork. I will only allow myself one piece a week.
The Geography of Dreams consists of six programmatic character pieces scored for symphony orchestra. The dreams portrayed have stuck in my memory and occured over a number of years and all take place in a world that reoccurs very often in my dreams, ever since I was a kid. This dream world has a complete geography that is quite consistent and which I’ve explored over the decades. It’s a peculiar feeling to know that this other world exists. It seems to exist outside of this time stream…but it is very real.
This video is all six movements combined. It’s not a “real” video…just images to have on the screen. But, YouTube has been my most productive social media in terms of prompting people to buy my scores. No other platform even comes close. Digital album available at https://hiltonjones.bandcamp.com/album/the-geography-of-dreams-2.
Sheet music for all the titles avabile at sheetmusicdirect and sheetmusicplus. As I remember all the links also have videos. There’s a limited number of free screenings (3?) for all titles for both the audio and the videos.
Church music directors chaff at the bit to do Christmas things during Advent, but of course one is not supposed to do that, and for good reason: Advent is a season of spiritual preparation. It’s penitential and introspective. It’s even colloquially referred to as the “little Lent” and its anthems and texts are often somber…unlike Christmas music, which is fun!
That’s why I wrote these two anthems. The texts are 100% Advent, biblically and theologically, but instead of stressing the reflective nature of Advent, the texts stress joyful anticipation of the coming Christ. Musically, they have lilting tempi and both the words and the music are emotionally positive.
The Songs of Mary and Hannah pairs the song of Hannah from the book of Samuel with Mary’s Magnificat (parallel narrative themes are often linked between the Jewish Bible and the Gospels). The text of The Dream of Love was inspired by a sermon by The Revered Kim Wells, pastor of Lakewood UCC, St. Petersburg, FL. (Note: The Dream of Love starts briefly in minor but almost immediately transitions to resolute, sunny E major!)
Here are the two anthems as videos: first, the St. Petersburg, FL Lakewood UCC Choir doing The Songs of Mary and Hannah followed by a score video of The Dream of Love.
All three were composed during the height of the pandemic. The video of Mov. 2 was recorded at that time. The videos of Mov. 1 and Mov. 3 were recorded recently. The video below with the organ and brass descants was also composed and recorded during the pandemic as part of online services during lockdown.
The hymn tune on which the above three preludes are based is called St. Anne. Hymn tunes have names which aren’t necessarily related to the words, since hymnals in the old days only gave the words. Hymn texts were sung to any tune that had a metrical scheme that fit the text.
St. Anne is most commonly associated these days with the words to O God, Our Help in Ages Past, by the hymnodist Issac Watts. The tune, St. Anne, was written by William Croft (1677-1727) when Croft was organist at St Anne’s Church in Soho. Croft’s musical mentor was John Blow.
Even people who are church goers aren’t often familiar with classical hymn tunes unless they’re members of a denomination which retains that tradition. Even if they do maintain the classical hymn tune tradition, many churches don’t even have hymnals anymore, using only projections . That’s why I’ve include the following video. Hopefully, you’ll hear ghosts of the hymn tune in my three preludes based on it.
If you’re afflicted with the music theory virus, and have to “figure things out” in the realm of words and ideas (instead of sound), the tune in the postlude (mov. 3) is in the left hand of the pianissimo passages. (I’ll let you figure out what’s happening in the forte passages on your own.)
In the Offertory (mov. 2), in the first half, the tune is in the thumb of the left hand; in the second half, it’s in the pinkie finger of the right hand.
In the prelude (mov. 1)…damned if I know where it is, but I can feel it’s there somewhere!
I’m in the final month of my tenure as music director at the Lakewood UnitedaChurch of Christ, the best church job I’ve ever had, the one most in alignment with my personal values and beliefs (although mine are decidedly more metaphysical than traditional). I’ve been there so long I can’t even remember how long. I know it’s more than 15 years.
But now, as one by one, my different career roles (first the university, then the commercial music director, and now church musician) have given way to a single focus, I’ll be spending my creative efforts on just my music composition (and related activites, such as self-publishing, making videos, and finding appropriate intimate venues to play some of my music live).
That last related activity means practicing to play what amounts to recitals again. Playing recitals isn’t a walk in the park; it’s hard work. As part of that, I’m practicing, practicing, practicing! My endurance is improving.
If you think you have the endurance to listen to all four movements in a row of this new piano sonata, A Random Day, here’s the four different movement videos stitched together into one video.
If not, I definitely understand! (When practicing all four in a row I grow weary myself.) If all you have time for is just the new movement, here it is (movement #3, Conversing with Trees and Their Friends While Walking at First Light). I’ve posted movements 1, 2, and 4 before.
Within a week, the sheet music will be available at sheetmusicdirect and sheetmusicplus for the seperate individual movements or, if desired, for all four as the complete piece (all four movements). I’ll add those links to this post when available.
In case you’re curious what the titles are about, they’re all about not particularly profound common occurrences/memories that might occur in any random day that, although mundane events, sometimes lead to mystical experiences almost as if my accident.
Way, way back pre-1999…I don’t even remember the exact date, probably early 90s, maybe late 80s, I wrote a piece call Caprice for Piano and ChamberOrchestra. It was performed at USF, Teresa Rose, pianist. In discussing the composition’s future with my friend and USF faculty colleague, Robert Helps, he wisely said that short concerti for piano are seldom performed for a variety of reasons.
So, the piece lay dormant in the proverbial drawer and I didn’t pursue it. But sometime around 2016 I decided to resurrect it as a piece for harp and chamber orchestra. That resulted in this computer generated performance.
Now in my 80s, I’m tidying up the musical efforts of my life. Hence posting that here.
Most of the YouTube stuff I’ve done recently has been my short piano pieces and arrangements. They’ve sold a bit on the Hal Leonard self-publishing sites. For at least a decade I’ve not written for anything that wasn’t “useful,” short pieces playable by mere mortals and choral music for the choir at Lakewood UCC where I’m the music director.
Listening to this old computer generated orchestral piece has encouraged me to start writing “useless” music again—music that’s unlikely to ever be performed. I will probably start with orchestrating some of my piano pieces. Orchestration is fun.
As an undergraduate at the University of the Pacific Conservatory of Music, my composition teacher was Stanworth Beckler. I learned so much from him. As with all real learning it’s not the information that’s presented in lessons and lectures, it’s the off-hand comment, almost in passing that sticks with you and guides and comforts you decades later. Several of his stick with me to this day.
Beckler taught a course one semester that was the result of his own in-depth study and analysis of ALL of the compositions of Igor Stravinsky. What a course! For the longest time I carefully kept his handouts. But…life. I no longer have them. If there’s any Beckler students out there who have those notes I will happily pay for their duplication and postage. They’re priceless.
Anyway…After listening to the complete works of Stravinsky over a semester and hearing Beckler’s analyses, one day I had the distinct impression that Stravinsky’s oeuvre is his own self-instruction in how to write music. That may seem like a peculiar observation for someone who wrote The Rite of Spring; he knew how to write music! But, alas, you have to learn all over again, every piece, no matter how long you’ve been doing it, ever since we entered the non-common-practice period (pretty much post Wagner to the present day).
I too am still trying to figure out how to compose and each piece I try to chip away at a new skill a little bit. (No, I won’t tell which skill it is for this piece.)
I’m finishing up posting a digital album on BandCamp of piano solo arrangements of some of my favorite Appalachian/British/Irish folk hymns. I’m able to able to post videos of my playing the tunes on BandCamp that are also available there as well as mp3 files/albums for download and streaming.
This video is from 2021, we were in the latter stages of the pandemic. I was 55 pounds heavier than I am now, but I love this particular performance so much, it’s the one I wanted to use for this new digital album (The River Strong). More about that album soon.
