Tag: composition

Score and video for “The Geography of Dreams”

6 programmatic pieces for symphony orchestra

The Geography of Dreams consists of six programmatic character pieces scored for symphony orchestra. The dreams portrayed have stuck in my memory and occured over a number of years and all take place in a world that reoccurs very often in my dreams, ever since I was a kid. This dream world has a complete geography that is quite consistent and which I’ve explored over the decades. It’s a peculiar feeling to know that this other world exists. It seems to exist outside of this time stream…but it is very real.

This video is all six movements combined. It’s not a “real” video…just images to have on the screen. But, YouTube has been my most productive social media in terms of prompting people to buy my scores. No other platform even comes close. Digital album available at https://hiltonjones.bandcamp.com/album/the-geography-of-dreams-2.

The score is available at https://www.sheetmusicdirect.com/en-US/se/ID_No/2169549/Product.aspx and
https://www.sheetmusicplus.com/en/product/the-geography-of-dreams-score-only-23935874.html. BUT, I’m happy to email a free copy of a PDF of it to any of my online social media Friends who’d want it. (Not making that offer on the sites open to the public. Who knows, some unknown someone would want to actually what to buy an orchestral score. With 8.3 billion people on the planet, accidents do happen.)

Two EZ Advent Anthems!

Church music directors chaff at the bit to do Christmas things during Advent, but of course one is not supposed to do that, and for good reason: Advent is a season of spiritual preparation. It’s penitential and introspective. It’s even colloquially referred to as the “little Lent” and its anthems and texts are often somber…unlike Christmas music, which is fun!

That’s why I wrote these two anthems. The texts are 100% Advent, biblically and theologically, but instead of stressing the reflective nature of Advent, the texts stress joyful anticipation of the coming Christ. Musically, they have lilting tempi and both the words and the music are emotionally positive.

The Songs of Mary and Hannah pairs the song of Hannah from the book of Samuel with Mary’s Magnificat (parallel narrative themes are often linked between the Jewish Bible and the Gospels). The text of The Dream of Love was inspired by a sermon by The Revered Kim Wells, pastor of Lakewood UCC, St. Petersburg, FL. (Note: The Dream of Love starts briefly in minor but almost immediately transitions to resolute, sunny E major!)

Here are the two anthems as videos: first, the St. Petersburg, FL Lakewood UCC Choir doing The Songs of Mary and Hannah followed by a score video of The Dream of Love.

These anthems are available online at the following sites:
The Songs of Mary and Hannah: Sheet Music Direct and Sheet Music Plus
The Dream of Love: Sheet Music Direct and Sheet Music Plus

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

HKJ Pipe Organ Playlist

I’m in the process of tidying up my social media. I’ve written pieces I’ve even forgotten I’ve written, let alone posted anywhere.

I’ve also done some analysis of who buys what of my sheet music. Pianists seem to mainly buy my arrangements of songs, mainly folk songs. Organists mainly buy my original stuff! I would have guessed it would have been exactly the opposite.

Trying to build on what I’ve learned from my sales stats, I’m try to assemble all the pieces of mine on YouTube that use pipe organ (solo organ pieces and pieces for solo melody instrument and organ). Another thing I would have never guessed is the (free!) promotional power videos have on sheet music sales. Far more than purely audio sites.

Here’s a link to a playlist of videos of pieces of mine that use pipe organ: Organ Playlist

I’ll continue to add to that list as I find pieces I’ve forgotten, so if you like organ music you might check back from time to time.

No magic brush

Dawn
Dawn

This is the most important truth I still have to learn for every piece. It’s like I completely forget how to write music after every piece. At one point in my life, I kept the first scraps of paper from pieces so I could look back, the next time, to see how miserable the first notes were. This really is the Number One lesson to learn. That Disney thing where the brush sweeps across the screen and the picture just flows off the brush just isn’t the way it really happens. It’s true, the Cosmic Radio does exist, but sometimed the reception isn’t that great. It can be like driving across country late at night and listening to AM radio. You might pick up a station that’s really from a different piece, or maybe a different spot in the same piece, or perhaps just a bad idea, or maybe…aliens.