I keep plugging away on adding pieces to my collection of single movement pieces for pipe organ, “Easy Postludes for Pipe Organ.”
I’m not being sarcastic when I say, “easy.” In organ music, the difficulty of a piece is primarily the difficulty of the pedal part. All of the pieces in the collection have minimal pedal parts. Even the part for the hands in this piece isn’t as hard as it sounds; it’s mainly just arpeggios and scales.
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!
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.
The Staff of Faith, has turned into one of my very, very favorite hymns. There’s just something about it that makes me happy, regardless what misery might be happening in real life.
I’ve written DOZENS of descants over the years…and improvised hundreds more during church services. I’m trying to collect all my descants into a publishable package. The task is tracking down the descants I bothered to write down. LOL
This one, and All Beautiful the March of Days that I posted recently are two I’ve found so far. If you go to my YouTube page, I’ll be posting all the descants there as I find them under my Trumpet Descants playlist.
EVENTUALLY, I’ll get the sheet music for them all available on the Hal Leonard sites: Sheet Music Plus, and Sheet Music Direct.
I’ve only ever had one church job where they complained that I never played long enough postludes! (It was a congregation with a number of professors.) Usually, people are out the back door before the organist gets to the first cadence…all too often in Catholic parishes some folks go straight from receiving communion right out the back door and on to the golf course..no waiting for that “Ite missa est!” This is a bunch of my short pieces that I’ve thought of releasing as a collection titled “Short, fast, not-too-difficult, organ postludes!” Not the snappiest title, but better than the one collection (that someone actually released) titled “Graveyard Favorites.” (“Graveyard” being a slang publishing term, more properly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgue_file.) Organists have a somewhat October-ish sense of humor.
You can listen to the whole bunch at this free streaming link: https://soundcloud.com/hilton-kean-jones/sets/single-organ-pieces. They follow one another automatically…you just click play and off it goes.
Sheet music for the individual movements are available under my name on sheetmusicplus.com and sheetmusicdirect.com.
The trumpet on the last piece can be played by the organ. Organists are familiar with what to do in those situations from many different Baroque trumpet & organ pieces. Of course, it can be played with organ too. I’ve been scrounging my files trying to get together all my trumpet hymn tune descants. They’re penciled into various hymns scattered hither and yon, so that may never be entirely complete.
Well…after selling my old Steinway baby grand a few years ago when I sold my condo and moved to renting, and after a few years of that and finally buying at house (!), I bought another acoustic piano again! I love it.
A good friend, herself an organist/pianist, asked if I’d given it a name yet. I never thought of that. So, I let names percolate in my head and the one that comes to mind that seems to have stuck is “Claude.” Claude came with a personality too. Difficult to describe, but he’ll be good for me.
In honor of Claude, here’s a little video of an old organ piece of mine from a set of organ pieces called 3 Songs for 4 Composers.
It comes to mind that my Claude is a southern boy, so like all southern boys he needs a middle name and his shall be “Maurice.” And, in true southern boy tradition in polite society it’s proper to refer to him as Claude Maurice.
A basic skill for any organist/church musician is composing hymn descants. Descants are countermelodies that make the singing of the hymn tune more enjoyable for the congregation…they allow the singers to enjoy the tension of counterpoint at a visceral level.
Well, I lost the performance video of me performing this on keyboards that goes with the soundtrack itself, so (waste not, want not) I married the track to pictures of my favorite liturgical symbol — BREAD!
Yeah, I know, communion bread is supposed to be unleavened bread (wikipedia: The hostia or sacramental bread, known as prosphorá or a πρόσφορον (prósphoron, “offering”) may be made out of only four ingredients: fine (white) wheat flour, pure water, yeast, and salt.) Nevertheless…
Yesterday, we moved the small Allen organ donated to us by Westminster Suncoast to a different, hopefully more advantageous spot in the chancel. It’s been a long while since I’ve played it, but will endeavor to do so more often. This coming Sunday, the postlude will be an old (thankfully, easy!) favorite, Buxtehude‘s Jig Fugue. Here’s a music video of it I recorded from waaaaay back in the early days of the pandemic before I started showing me at the keyboard.
Rev. Wells, pastor of Lakewood UCC, where I’m music director, introduced me to this grand Congregational hymn with which I was not at all familiar. Now, it’s one of my favorites: My Faith, It Is an Oaken Staff.
Check out the representative text at https://hymnary.org/text/my_faith_it_is_an_oaken_staff and the author’s full bio at https://hymnary.org/person/Lynch_TT.
The tune’s name is THE STAFF OF FAITH and its composer is anonymous. It’s been variously described as traditional Swiss melody, or an English folksong. It’s in public domain.
After seeing his picture at the above links, the following account gave me a laugh: “he was a s student at the Highbury Independent College; but withdrew, partly on account of failing health, and partly because his spirit was too free to submit to the routine of College life.” He looks as if he and I both share an equally dissolute life! Nevertheless, he wrote an amazing amount of moving texts.
