Free Arrangement

Click on song title at bottom of article… to download FREE copy.

Whispering Hope….definitely an old hymn! My husband has been wanting me to arrange this hymn for a long time. He finally got his wish 🙂  I’ve written an early advanced piano arrangement of “Whispering Hope” which I’m offering for FREE to my church pianist readers.

I decided to read up on the composer of this song and was surprised at what I found. (in the numbered list below)

Septimus Winner, an American songwriter of the 19th century, was born in May 1827 and died of a heart attack in 1902.  He used the following stage names (pseudonymns) for his written poems and music: Alice Hawthorne, Percy Guyer, Mark Mason, Marion Florence, Leon Dore, Apsley Street, and Paul Stenton.

Septimus’ wife, Mary Ann, was a relative of Nathaniel Hawthorne which explains the generous use of the stage name, Alice Hawthorne.

See if you recognize the following songs written by Septimus Winner. (this will date some of you including myself)    🙂

1. Listen to the Mockingbird (Alice Hawthorne)

2. Oh Where Oh Where Has My Little Dog Gone (lyrics only) *German folk tune

3. Carry Me Back to Tennessee (better known as Ellie Rhee)

4. Whispering Hope (1868)

I could not locate the story behind the writing of “Whispering Hope” so without further ado…click on the following song title to download your free early advanced arrangement of…

Whispering Hope

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My grandson, Nathan

Church Pianist Update

Every now and then I go through a dry spell and it’s been one of those times.

I have three arrangements I’ve been trying to complete but no ideas would flow when I sat at the piano.  Very frustrating!  I guess you could say I took a break and now I’m back on track 🙂

I think the latest congregational collection project burnt me out for a while. Don’t get me wrong….I LOVE to write music but sometimes I need to back up and just “not think” music for a spell to rejuvenate myself.

Before I sat at the piano today, I prayed “Lord, please guide my fingers and help me think clearly.”  The Lord answered my prayer 🙂

I just finished the final editing and layout for “I’d Rather Have Jesus” and conversing with Warner Chappell today to see what needs to be done to procede with publication. Yay!

Also working on an advanced piano arrangement of “Whispering Hope” which will be FREE 🙂  and…..trying to finish an advanced arrangement of “Holy, Holy, Holy”.

Hope to publish something soon!

Gotta go!  More music to write!

Next article:

As church pianist, I find it a challenge to locate nice patriotic vocal specials.

Need any song ideas for July 5th Sunday?  I’ll share a few with you soon!

Attention: Piano Teachers and Church Pianists! Now’s the time to shop for sacred piano books with this GREAT deal!

I’ve been teaching from The FJH Music Company’s piano method books for at least fifteen years. FJH also has a great collection of sacred piano books by composers such as Melody Bober, Marilynn Ham and Cindy Berry…to name a few.

For a limited time, the FJH Music Company is making an excellent offer to piano teachers and church musicians!  Click the link below to go to their special promo page which contains the order form with a list of all the books on sale for a limited time only.

ORDER HERE:  The FJH Sacred Piano Library Sale!(40-45% discount with FREE SHIPPING!

A big thanks to Kyle Hackinson, of FJH Music Company Inc., for allowing me to share this excellent sale with my church pianist readers.

Just published a sacred two piano arrangement that I’ve had on file for several years. My male piano students have really enjoyed this energy-driven piece.

Here’s a video of one of my students (on the keyboard) playing along with one of our college students in a recent service.

Sheet music for this arrangement is available under in store under the Piano Ensemble section for Two Piano Arrangements.

Many of you downloaded “Haven of Rest & Wonderful Peace” arrangement while it was free… before it went on sale in our store.

For that reason, I’m sharing page three with the corrected run in measure #22.

Click here to download page three of Haven of Rest & Wonderful Peace arrangement.

Click HERE  to purchase the full arrangement.

Special note to my readers:  This advanced sacred piano solo of The Haven of Rest & Wonderful Peace is available in our music store. (It was available for a short time after publication but now for sale in our music store.)

Last week, a church pianist friend of mine who I met through my website was asking if I would write another advanced devotional piano solo.  She couldn’t have asked at a better time since I was wanting to start a new advanced piano arrangement.

I began thinking about The Haven of Rest and tried to think of a song that would go with it. The chorus of “Wonderful Peace” just seemed to flow in thought and rhythm at the end of Haven of Rest chorus.

What a blessing to know as a Christian that…”I’ve anchored my soul in the haven of rest” and now I have “Peace, peace, wonderful peace…coming down from the Father above…”

The Haven of Rest was written (unsurprisingly) by an Irish sailor, Henry Gilmour, who came to America at an early age. (more on Henry’s life)

 Purchase Here

Update on Free Piano Arrangement of Haven of Rest Medley:

Just put the first two handwritten pages into Finale today….took about 30 minutes.  I have three pages to go 🙂

Sorry I haven’t posted much lately but have battled different sicknesses since January and now I have the shingles 🙁

I’m working on an advanced sacred piano solo that will be available for FREE.

Medleys are my favorite piano specials and looking forward to sharing this particular arrangement entitled “Haven of Rest w/ Wonderful Peace”.

The hand-written version is almost complete!

Just wanted to alert my readers that I just posted two new books for sale on my “used music for sale” page.

I have accumulated so many books over the last couple of years and just parting with some of them. I will post a few more for sale soon.

Click on this link to see sample pages of each book

I found out today by accident that the melody of “I’d Rather Have Jesus” that I’m  using in my piano solo… is copyrighted.  I always check to make sure hymns are public domain before arranging them and had checked this one out as well.

I verified that the tune and melody were public domain and didn’t click on the music image to view the song and later discovered the tune was different than the one I was arranging.  Guess it’s better to find out BEFORE publishing!

So…I’ve been online with Music Services (provides a variety of ‘a la carte’ services to music publishers – song registration, licensing, royalty collections, royalty accounting) to obtain a “print” license for this arrangement.  This is my first time to deal with a copyrighted work.  I won’t do too many of these for the sake of added expense but will try this with “I’d Rather Have Jesus” since I had already promised it to my readers.

The downside is…there will be a delay in publishing until I get the clearance from Music Services.  I will keep you all posted and sorry for the delay but I want to be above board!