Category: Holiday music

Carol of the Birds (Curoo, Curoo)

It’s Eastertide, nevertheless, this wonderful Irish Christmas carol from the 1800s, was the next on my project list: getting caught up on posting all my choral pieces and arrangements to Hal Leonard’s ArrangeMe.com. Part of that getting caught up is making score videos and posting here, as well as getting the links inserted on my Compositions page. When ArrangeMe gives me the publication links, I post those to YT, IG (personal & business), and here.

That’s part of my cycle of completion. I remember reading Stephan King—in his book on writing I think it was—that he wondered if writing weren’t some sort of physical compulsion. That the hand needed to be putting words on the page. For me, writing pieces and arrangements are times when I lose complete sense of time, even hunger. And I’m not able to turn that compulsion off until I’ve completed the cycle. Getting audio and score and links posted (a tangible record of the effort), such as this post, completes the cycle.

So…thanks for putting up with my compulsion!

4 Sets of Trumpet Descants on Familiar Christmas Carols

Sheet music should be online at sheetmusicdirect and sheetmsicplus by 10/6/25. These four sets can be played, a different descant for every verse, or the performer is welcome to pick and chose which to do and for which verses. This recordings shows them all in an order that works if all are done in a set.

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

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

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.

A Christmas Concert for Solo Piano

On Christmas Eve, at Lakewood United Church of Christ, I’ll be doing the above selections at 6:30pm as a musical prelude to the 7pm service of candlelight and communion. These selections are all arrangements of mine. The sheet music for them is available as a collections at Sheet Music Direct and Sheet Music Plus. The individual movements are also available. See the end of this post for their links.

You may stream the audio of this collection, for free, at https://soundcloud.com/hilton-kean-jones/sets/a-christmas-concert-for-solo-piano. There’s nothing to download. Clicking on that link takes you to the webpage and you can play it from there. Each selection of the collection is playable from that link.

These are not highfalutin recordings, all slickly mastered and recorded with expensive microphones. They are just spur of the moment recordings on my cellphone! My emphasis these days, at may age, is solely upon writing the sheet music and rhw live performance of that music. Anything else–recordings, videos, internet posts–is just in support of that effort using whatever means I have at hand.

Hope to see you on Christmas Eve if you can make it.

Here’s the links for the sheet music individual pieces, but I highly recommend the collection. It is a considerable savings over the individual pieces.

Come, O Come, EmmanuelSheet Music DirectSheet Music Plus
What Child Is ThisSheet Music DirectSheet Music Plus
Wexford CarolSheet Music DirectSheet Music Plus
O Little Town of BethlehemSheet Music DirectSheet Music Plus
Good Christians, All Rejoice!Sheet Music DirectSheet Music Plus
The Babe of BethlehemSheet Music DirectSheet Music Plus
Lo, How a RoseSheet Music DirectSheet Music Plus
God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen
(or, as I prefer to call it, “God Rest Ye Merry, Y’all!“)		Sheet Music DirectSheet Music Plus

The Babe of Bethlehem (solo piano)

A parallel piece of completely original music begins the setting as the musical foreground and later in the arrangement the traditional public domain melody becomes the focus, then both interplay in continuously changing counterpoint.

SHEET MUSIC available at
https://www.sheetmusicdirect.com/en-US/se/ID_No/1424900/Product.aspx
and
https://www.sheetmusicplus.com/title/the-babe-of-bethleham-digital-sheet-music/22623018
#music
#christmas
#piano

Good Christians, All Rejoice!

Good Christians, All Rejoice! (solo piano) A familiar Christmas classic 14th Century German melody arranged in an extended form with sections of counter melodies and a center section influenced by jazz harmony. Fun to play and a good, uptempo piece with which to end a set.

Click https://soundcloud.com/hilton-kean-jones/good-christians-all-rejoice-solo-piano to listen (nothing to download, free streaming).

Sheet music available at the following sites: