A song for a wedding, civil union, or partnership blessing. Words by Rev. Lucy Lee Jones, Ph.D., tune by William Walker in his Southern Harmony and Musical Companion, harmonized and arranged by Hilton Kean Jones. This video is the piano accompaniment. The vocal part is displayed in split screen. hope to get a vocal demo of this recorded eventually. For now…you gotta sing that part! 🙂
Not that many years ago both churches and social movements dived into figuring out how to make use of social media and digital technologies to extend their reach and grow their numbers. Everyone wanted to go viral and experience the apparent promise and magic of instant “success.” With time, has come reflection. With social movements, scholars now point to how movements like the Arab Spring successfully used what were then new technologies to bring huge numbers of people into the streets, but such movements did not have the infrastructure and capacity needed to sustain change over time.New and ever evolving technologies should indeed be used, but they need to be used with old technologies—“technologies” as old as the Bible. These technologies have a magic of their own, but the magic is not instant. It requires time and work. It requires bringing people into relationship. It requires developing a tangible interdependence between persons with diverse interests, viewpoints, and backgrounds while they work together toward shared ends.In studying movements, scholar Hahrie Han notes that it is in this relational, interdependent work that transformation happens. Movement participants grow and develop in remarkable ways. Commitments are deepened. New skills are acquired. Confidence is gained. At the same time, longer lasting movements are formed and collective action is sustained. Han notes that in such ways “the whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts.”Here is where the wisdom of Paul in 1 Corinthians 12 becomes so timeless: “Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.” It is the potential of the body of Christ that gets me excited. It is why I see so much promise in all of the congregations and church members working now to collect Climate Hope Postcards. Together, we can be part of an effort that lasts more than a moment.
reposted with the permission of the author — many of the elements of the email may be found in various articles at https://www.ucc.org/pollinator
This arrangement of mine is a musical reflections on the hymn tune, Resignation, a melody of anonymous authorship from William Walker’s “Southern Harmony, and Musical Companion” (1835).
The second “verse” of the arrangement is a minor key treatment of the melody. It returns to a more upbeat character on the “third” verse, and an even more positive statement on the “fourth” verse.
I don’t have videos of me playing a lot of these solo piano arrangements. I recorded them before I got into the practice of making videos. When there’s no video, I’m using a score synchronized with my audio recording.
There’s a book a friend of mine, Robert Help, read when he was about my age, called The Summing Up, by Somerset Maugham. I’ve not yet read it (it’s on my list with several thousand others), but just the title strikes a responsive chord with me. It’s what I seem to be doing right now: summing up all I’ve written and recorded (audio and/or video), and where the scores and recordings might be found, listed all in into one spot: https://hiltonkeanjones.com/compositions/.
It’s a monumental effort. In addition to what’s already on that page, I have 46 more original compositions to get on there and 34 arrangements of public domain tunes. That’s not counting all the links that need to be added to existing listings on the page and any new pieces I might manage to write and record.
Why?
As a former composition student, now himself a teacher and a friend, once answered when I asked myself why I continued to write: “Because that’s what you do.” It’s probably the best answer I’ve ever heard. (I assume that answer also applies to organizing what one has written.) Although, I am well aware and fully admit “vanity of vanities! All things are vanity” is even more true.
The most recent addition to the composition page is an updated version of The World of Starlit Butterflies.
The piano part is completely rewritten so it’s shorter and hopefully more interesting but still fun to play and listen to. The 2 keyboard version and the solo piano version have exactly the same piano part. In other words, the strings are optional. Using the second keyboard gives pianists the chance to experience ensemble playing, a skill they’ll need in order to earn a living later in life. The fundamental piece is the solo piano version, the video that leads this article.
I seem to have found “my place,” writing pieces and arrangements for piano that fit the “easy intermediate” difficulty level. I’m quite happy to have found “my place.” It’s my happy place! Those pieces are selling!
My mother, Jane Jones, with 4 year old me in Biloxi, Mississippi.
In my job as music director at Lakewood UCC (my favorite church job of all time, without exaggeration!) the piano pieces I’ll be doing Sunday, Mother’s Day, were all favorites of my mom’s. Here’s the list, with YouTube links. Only the first link is me; the rest are my favorite YouTube versions of the pieces.
Lakewood United Church of Christ 