Back in 1995 I wrote three sets solo piano pieces (Roma, Missa de Angelis, and Madonna) that I recorded and was able to release on an audio CD under a University of South Florida grant. I’m finally getting these, synced with their scores, on videos. The sheet music for the set of pieces, Roma, of which this movement is a part, is available at https://www.sheetmusicdirect.com/en-US/se/ID_No/1084675/Product.aspx and https://www.sheetmusicplus.com/title/roma-digital-sheet-music/21996588.
Category: piano
The Voyage of Clouds & As the Universe, So the Soul
I finished a new piece: The Voyage of Clouds.
The sheet music is available at https://www.sheetmusicdirect.com/en-US/se/ID_No/1615969/Product.aspx.
It’s the fifth movement of this suite, As the Universe, So the Soul.
The sheet music for the suite is available at https://www.sheetmusicdirect.com/en-US/se/ID_No/1616244/Product.aspx.
Dancing in the Shadows
Another video of a movement from my Meditations & Reflections. They’re all recorded already but only acoustically at the Springs Theater, John Stephan engineer a few years ago. But, I never made any YouTube videos, so working my way through a few of them.
Sheet music for this movement available at
https://www.sheetmusicdirect.com/en-US/se/ID_No/1084657/Product.aspx
or
https://www.sheetmusicplus.com/title/dancing-in-the-shadows-digital-sheet-music/21995089
Sheet music for entire set available at
https://www.sheetmusicdirect.com/en-US/se/ID_No/1084672/Product.aspx
or
https://www.sheetmusicplus.com/title/meditations-reflections-digital-sheet-music/21995148
Rainbow of Dreams
Sheet music for single movement available at https://www.sheetmusicdirect.com/en-US/se/ID_No/1084671/Product.aspx or https://www.sheetmusicplus.com/title/the-rainbow-of-dreams-digital-sheet-music/21995111 for complete set of Meditations & Reflections at https://www.sheetmusicdirect.com/en-US/se/ID_No/1084672/Product.aspx or https://www.sheetmusicplus.com/title/meditations-reflections-digital-sheet-music/21995148
The Missing Dream (video)
“The Missing Dream”
from “Meditations and Reflections”
Sheet music for just this movement found at
https://www.sheetmusicdirect.com/en-US/se/ID_No/1084658/Product.aspx
or https://www.sheetmusicplus.com/title/the-missing-dream-digital-sheet-music/21995090
Sheet music for the the complete set
https://www.sheetmusicdirect.com/en-US/se/ID_No/1084672/Product.aspx
or https://www.sheetmusicplus.com/title/meditations-reflections-digital-sheet-music/21995148
What the Wind Whispers
(Yes, that’s one of my cats back there on my almost made bed…I’m not completely moved in yet!) More than anything, the process of composition is discovery, not planning. That’s true for a single piece (the fragments of the piece come together while wrangling with the details…it takes time) and also for collections of pieces: you discover that a bunch of recent pieces you’ve written all seem to be coming from the “same place.” You don’t plan to write a collection. You discover you’ve been writing one. Finally, amidst this process of discovery, you discover that one of the pieces is the keystone, the piece that most points the way to what the collection is “all about” (whether it be a sonata, a symphony, a suite, a programmatic piece, a simple set or group or collection of pieces…whatever). This piece, “What the Wind Whispers,” is that piece, the keystone piece for the collection of pieces I’ve discovered I’ve been writing: working title, “All and One.” Google panentheism (not pantheism) for background on that working title.
The sheet music will be available soon at…
https://www.sheetmusicdirect.com/arrangeme/17356/hilton-kean-jones and
https://www.sheetmusicplus.com/en/arrangeme-pro?sid=17356
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.
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, Emmanuel | Sheet Music Direct | Sheet Music Plus |
| What Child Is This | Sheet Music Direct | Sheet Music Plus |
| Wexford Carol | Sheet Music Direct | Sheet Music Plus |
| O Little Town of Bethlehem | Sheet Music Direct | Sheet Music Plus |
| Good Christians, All Rejoice! | Sheet Music Direct | Sheet Music Plus |
| The Babe of Bethlehem | Sheet Music Direct | Sheet Music Plus |
| Lo, How a Rose | Sheet Music Direct | Sheet Music Plus |
| God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen (or, as I prefer to call it, “God Rest Ye Merry, Y’all!“) | Sheet Music Direct | Sheet 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