Category: keyboard

Fire of Justice, Fire of Love (choir, organ, & trumpet)

If you’re a church choir director, this is a good number for Pentecost. It can be done a number of ways: the basic configuration is the congregation and choir (in unison) singing the short refrain (a bulletin insert graphic comes with the choir parts) and the choir, or a section of the choir, or a soloist singing the refrains. The trumpet descant may be played on any soprano solo melody instrument, or if necessary by the organist (organists know what to do in order to do this).

I’m pleased to finally be able to have a demo of this version with full orchestration using the Cantai synth voices. There’s also a good video demo of the Lakewood UCC choir doing it as just a simple hymn. I like it that way ever bit as much as this fancy “downtown” version with organ and trumpet.

I write lots of secular music and arrangements, too. But, I’m honored even as an octogenarian to be able to have a church music director/keyboardist position. Bach, Mozart, Palestrina, Handel all had jobs as church musicians. It’s heartening to realize that even they had to get up early on Sunday mornings!

Sheet Music available from
https://www.sheetmusicdirect.com/en-US/se/ID_No/1226200/Product.aspx
and
https://www.sheetmusicplus.com/title/fire-of-justice-fire-of-love-digital-sheet-music/22380866.

#music #organ #trumpet #choir #church #sacred

Resignation

I’m in the process of doing the necessary work to distribute three new digital albums to the various streaming services. Part of that is visiting the four previous albums of mine that are already distributed to see if they’re so awful I should just pay to have them deleted from distribution (it’s something that you can do). That entails listing to them with new ears.

While doing so, I realized I still like what I did on this album, in particular this tune, Resignation.

Here’s a link to the complete album you can listen to YouTube Music.

Sweet Rivers (solo piano)

Hal Leonard, the world’s largest sheet music publisher, runs a site called ArrangeMe which gives composers & arrangers a vehicle to self publish their arrangements of pop tunes–Hal Leonard owns the rights to a vast number of pops songs all of which are available to arrange through ArrangeMe–and of tunes in the public domain. As well, it provides a self-publishing platform for composers of their original works. When there’s a sale, the composer or arranger make a percentage and Hal Leonard gets a percentage.

If you go to the Compositions page of my website, you’ll links to those two sites for almost all of my compositions that are for instrumental solos, piano solos, organ solos, and choral/vocal music. (I don’t bother trying to sell scores of my symphonic music and concerti since those are not really something people are shopping for.)

Pianists seem to buy my folk song and hymn tune arrangements and organists my original music although that’s not always the case. It’s not gonna pay my mortgage, but I do make steady sales. My videos on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/@hiltonkeanjones) are my main channel for promoting my music. There’s probably other ways that would increase sales, but I’m not business savvy. Suggestions always welcome!

I love this tune: Sweet Rivers. The composer of the tune is anonymous and the tune is found in William Walker’s 1835 Souther Harmony, and Musical Coompanion. I could play it over and over again. It makes me happy and makes me smile. Check out the words and various instances of the tune in different hymnals at https://hymnary.org/text/sweet_rivers_of_redeeming_love. This is real old-timey music at its best.

look up

My dear friend, William Lindsay, who died November of ’24 after a long, progressive battle with dementia and Parkinson’s, used to tell me whenever I was in the clutches of melancholy, “look up.” He mean it literally as well as figuratively. It worked every time, and still does. Somehow just the physical act of looking up at whatever there is to see, the mind is diverted from the unwanted thoughts. Clouds, tops of trees, birds flying, tall buildings, stars, the sun, sunrise colors, sunsets, the cerulean sky…doesn’t matter, even a telephone pole will do.

That’s what this album of piano pieces is all about, and it’s dedicated to Bill.

You can buy the mp3 album at https://hiltonjones.bandcamp.com/album/look-up. You can also listen to it for free, up to three times I believe.

While you’re there, check out the other mp3 albums at https://hiltonjones.bandcamp.com/!

The gorgeous album covers are all by Nathan Jones, my son, who is a successful designer in Atlanta, GA.

And finally, “Always try to keep a patch of sky above your life.” ~ Marcel Proust

Hosanna (for pipe organ)

The problem for most working pipe organists is that most interesting organ repertoire is too hard to work up new pieces on a weekly basis and usually too long for a service. In short, the interesting literature is suitable for recital but not church service use. Add to that is the fact that (notice I kept saying “interesting” in the forgoing paragraph) most stuff that’s the right length and difficulty for weekly use is beige arrangements of boring hymn tunes. Nothing wrong with hymn tune arrangements–I’ve written my share–just don’t make them beige and boring.

Anyway, two friends are getting married and they asked me to play organ at their coming wedding. I haven’t gone near an organ in quite a while. In fact, at 81 (this month) I’ve managed to live long enough to have two pairs of pipe organ shoes literally rot and fall apart. So, I ordered a fancy new pair of organ shoes (fancy: suede soles and built up heels) and to motivate myself to practice, I’m in the process of writing a bunch of new organ music that’s (hopefully) interesting and the right length and difficulty for weekly service use.

Any former students who want to perform one of them, just write me and I’ll send you a free PDF. Otherwise, they’re available at https://www.sheetmusicdirect.com/en-US/se/ID_No/1906100/Product.aspx and https://www.sheetmusicplus.com/en/product/hosanna-23610675.html.

Lavender Skies

Each geography has its own sky. Florida’s skies are unique and amazing. There are many roadside artist paintings for tourists with purple skies. There’s a reason for that. The purple you often see at dusk is real. People want to take a little of that home with them. Sometimes, at dawn, there’s a border of lavender against the soft rose sky. It’s fleeting. Like the colors of the ocean or the Gulf, the color of the sky is constantly changing. At my age, I don’t see dusk all that often, but I see many a dawn. A lavender sky is one of my favorites.

Hilton, play us some tunes…something Irish

I’m kind of feeling my way right now. All I know is I feel the urge to make music as folks might have done it in my grandparents’ day, as a informal playing of music on the home piano and while folks sat around and kind of humed along. Or…maybe if i could be a busker I would. This is an assemblage of a bunch of Irish tunes, with almost no editing, just paying one after another, all under 90 seonds (except the very last one would is 120 seconds I think). I might peel these apart and make them seperate Instagram posts, or YouTube Shorts, or not…I really don’t know. Maybe I’m feeling the need to have a gig like Eric Satie did, playing in a bar, and Debussy and Ravel (separately) would come and listen to him. So, anyway, there’s the above video which is only by means of an experiment, that I don’t quite know where it leads.

Nebula Waltz (solo piano)

Newest piece. Not a perfect performance, but the best of 6+ takes. As a video, that’s as good as I’m going to get it. But, I like this piece and I wanted it as a video. People don’t seem to like recorded music as much as they do videos. I don’t quite understand, I accept that that seems to be true. I’m SO HAPPY with my new music stand light! I have to increase my music to 150% enlargementany more and I need LOTS of light on the score. Much better conditions now. 🙂

#music

#piano

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.

Twilight Peal

My old faithful music notation software will no longer work on new OS so having to convert, literally, hundreds of pieces to the new software. I don’t dare listen to any of them or I’ll never get done (there’s hours and hours of my music). But, I made the mistake of listening to this one. Couldn’t resist throwing this video together. I dressed up like this a number of years back to play the organ for a Halloween concert at the Palladium (I don’t even know if that organ there still exists). #halloween #pipeorgan #music