Category: Church music

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.

Rummaging through boxes…

I’m getting all my trumpet descants in one spot, and ran across this. Aa a working composer/arranger I keep unearthing stuff I’d long forgotten I’d done. I’m also trying to find the 8 or 9 descants I’d written for Don Owen for one Christmas Eve service. They gotta be here someone…LOL
#music
#trumpet
#christmas

Puer Nobis Nascitur

My setting of a traditional medieval melody arranged for cello and piano, score and part available on sheetmusicdirect and sheetmusicpus, although originally a Christmas text the same tune is used in some hymnals with an Easter text. I also have the same setting arranged for trumpet and pipe organ which you can hear at I made a trumpet and organ of the same arrangement. You can hear it at https://soundcloud.com/hilton-kean-jones/puer-nobis-organ-trumpet.

Joy Dawned Again on Easter Day (for trumpet & organ)

The sermon this coming Sunday needed musical selections with the word, “Joy,” in the title. Of course, there’s a bunch of hymns that qualify, and one Sunday School song I remember to this day from childhood. Of course, Bach’s Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring. I decided, needing a postlude, I might see what I could come up with of my own. This is the result. Alas, no trumpeter at hand, so I’ll just do a piano rendition as best I can on this Sunday. I seem to be coming up with a collection of trumpet and organ pieces. This’ll be a happy addition to that I think. The high school band trumpet player in me (I didn’t continue trumpet into college) thinks it’d be a fun and not too difficult piece to play! Although the title is appropriate for Easter, the original text Puer Nobis Nascitur) is a Christmas text!

Call for Love (a Shaker song from 1839)

You may need to boost your volume a little in order to hear the description I spoke at the beginning. Rev. Kim bought a book of Shaker hymn tunes. One of these she asked me to arrange for the choir to sing today, Mother’s Day. The Blessed Mother, in the Shaker tradition, was the founder of the Shaker sect. There’s another phrase you my hear which is “love, love,” which is, the best I can tell, a term that means the same as agape, or divine love. The song, as it was passed down by Mother indicates where people should dance–they believe that dancing was prayer–and where people should speak in tongues (they called it “shout”). I picked a bunch of words that relate to motherhood, like Work, Song, Fatih, Peace, Care, Hope, Love, Joy, Dance, Soul, Life, Home, Dream, Heart, and the choir in certain passages are to intone words of their choice from that set of words, randomly.

Lift Your Hearts! as sung by unison choir

A while back I first posted about this song–lyrics by my sister, Rev. Lucy Lee Jones and music by me–and the media was a solo recording by a friend of mine. The above video is that same song but sung by a church choir. The text isn’t necessarily “religious,” but it has a spiritual and philosophical message that makes it appropriate to be sung in a church setting. The choir did a great job and seem to enjoy singing the tune.

I finally wrote down what I play for the accompaniment! I’ve written far too many pieces where I never wrote down my part, just the parts for the other instruments or voices. I’m trying to get some of that finally written down.

The song (which can be a solo or a unison choir piece) with its fully written out accompaniment for piano can be downloaded from Sheet Music Direct and Sheet Music Plus.

Yet another request…

My sister, my first music teacher (she taught me the names of the notes…at least that’s what I remember), said she thought my arrangement of The Staff of Faith (trumpet/organ version, oboe/piano version) would work well for her instrument (french horn). She’s absolutely right!

One of the things I taught my composition students was that (1) if you keep the tessitura of an instrumental in its optimum range and (2) as long as the dimensionality of the counterpoint is good [dimensionality of counterpoint is a whole topic unto itself] you can combine ANY instruments in ANY combination and they will balance well! (Almost always…LOL)

Working on the same arrangement but for three different instruments reminded me of that principle so thought I’d pass it on.

Here’s the SoundCloud computer demo of the horn version:

Sheet music available at https://www.sheetmusicdirect.com/en-US/se/ID_No/1593234/Product.aspx and https://www.sheetmusicplus.com/en/product/the-staff-of-faith-my-faith-it-is-an-oaken-staff-22829054.html.

By request…

A friend saw the post on The Staff of Faith (My Faith It Is an Oaken Staff) for trumpet and organ and asked if I’d make a version for oboe and piano. What a great idea. With a couple adjustments to the key and the piano part it worked well. It’s now available at Sheet Music Direct and Sheet Music Plus. You can see and hear a full preview at those sites. You can also listen to a computer demo at this SoundCloud player.

Trumpet & organ piece added to sheet music direct/plus

A gentleman in the U.K. stumbled upon a YouTube video of this piece, and after not finding it on either Sheet Music Direct or Sheet Music Plus, he emailed me to ask about it. I’d written the piece, intending to publish it, but like many things at my age, forgot to do so. So, his kind email prompted me to get the deed done. My The Staff of Faith (My Faith It Is an Oaken Staff) for trumpet and organ is now available at Sheet Music Direct and Sheet Music Plus. Both sites allow you to fully preview the score and the audio. But, you can also listen to it on the Soundcloud player below.