| The Church Pianist |
| A help ministry for church pianists all over the world! |
Have you ever wondered what to play for a funeral or how loud or soft to play? Watch this video for tips on playing for a funeral at your own church.
Funeral Hymn Suggestions (List of hymns)
Funeral Hymn Collection (sheet music)
Look who covered for me last night during prelude!
It’s so nice to have my students help out in our music ministry.
We had a few kinks (due to my oversight).
I had Allissa (the more advanced student) play the intros for the couple hymns they played together. They all played a review piece by themselves too. The prelude lasted about six minutes.
I’ll be playing a handful of John W Peterson songs in addition to a new advanced arrangement of God Will Take Care of You.
I plan to publish God Will Take Care of You by this Saturday. Speaking of comforting hymns…WHAT a comforting hymn! The words and melody are SO soothing. Once you hear the story behind this hymn written in 1904….the hymn will mean even more to you! From the mouth of a young one this hymn was born!
Please join me for an evening of music around the piano. Wish you all could be here in person so we could hear everyone sing together!
See the playlist below for tonight’s list of Comforting Hymns for June 17, 2021 at 8pm EST. Grab your hymnals so you can sing along!
CLICK HERE TO WATCH ARCHIVED VIDEO
This past Sunday I had to play in E Major (four sharps) for a male vocal solo and survived! He was singing “The Call for Reapers” out of the hymnal. The hymnal version was in the key of A flat major.
In his first practice I discovered E Major was the most suitable key for his baritone range. I decided I would brave the sea of black notes and make it work!
Usually I would have had the vocalist go to another nearby key that I could reasonable transpose to.
As I’ve mentioned before….E major is NOT my most comfortable key to play in. Some of my readers are sharp key lovers but I’m quite the opposite!
A simple sketch of “The Call for Reapers” was all I needed to keep me on track. It worked wonders! I was able to follow the piece fairly easy. The gentleman sang two verses and choruses but I just wrote out one verse and chorus as more of a guide.
Most hymns in the church hymnal don’t go beyond three sharps or five flats. That explains why I don’t feel as comfy beyond the hymnal key range.
Maybe there are other church pianists who could benefit from this simple sketched out arrangement of “The Call for Reapers”.
This particular hymn makes a great choice for Mission’s Conference or other mission related meeting.
I’m sharing the verse in this post and will publish the chorus by hopefully next weekend.
Click on following title to download your FREE copy of the verse
Part Two (chorus) by next weekend. (March 8 – 10, 2021)
“Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus”…an excellent reminder to focus on Jesus as we travel through this earthly life.
As I grow older…the words to these old hymns become even more meaningful.
Here’s a homespun hymn arrangement of “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus.” I just played from my heart and tried to replicate via paper 😉
I especially love the last verse:
“His Word shall not fail you_HE PROMISED 🙂
Believe Him and all will be well.
Then go to a world that is dying, His perfect salvation to tell!
This arrangement is VERY advanced due to at least a half dozen runs…measure #42 contains a run I’ve never used or seen before…but it just seemed to fit.
I will admit it’s the hardest run for me to play in this arrangement. But…with practice it can happen 🙂
Right after the service this past Sunday night…I noticed my oldest grandson sitting on the front pew with an open hymnal in his lap wearing a perplexed expression.
“Whatcha doing?” I asked. He points to the hymn title “Doxology” and says to me with a concerned look, “Grandma, this is a weird word and it’s not even one of the words in this hymn!”
Trying not to show my amusement, I explained to him what the word “Doxology” meant and how not all hymn titles are found in the lyrics but how the title will in most cases reflect the main topic of the hymn.
Across the page I noticed the hymn title “Security” and asked him what he thought that hymn was about. He wrinkled up his face in thought and replied, “Security has to do with policemen.” I explained it was about feeling secure in God’s arms; God’s protection.
My grandson has had such a fascination with our church hymnal since he was very young. (He’s now almost nine and hasn’t lost interest in the hymns.)
He actually learned to read by singing through the hymns he knew from the hymnal on their 40 minute commute to church!
On Sunday afternoons, you can usually find him singing through the hymnal as his repertoire has greatly increased!
I LOVE the hymns too! Sometimes I join in and sing along with him on Sunday afternoons.
My advanced sacred piano solo of “The Lord’s Prayer” is now available through Sheet Music Plus.
This particular arrangement took two weeks to create. I always like to allow breathing space when creating the more advanced pieces…always chiseling away…trying to smooth the rough edges.
As a church pianist, I always played the vocal accompaniment for someone to sing but never as a piano solo.
I’ve never come across this particular song as a piano solo. How about you? I’m sure there’s piano solo arrangements out there for “The Lord’s Prayer” but I haven’t seen one at the advanced level.
I tried to stay true to the flow of the melody score even though I stretched it out a bit with tuplet time. The tempo should be brisk to avoid dragging out the melody. I tried to maintain a clear melody path while meandering through many twists and turns. 😉
I thought The Lord’s Prayer was in the public domain. I searched out the title before creating the arrangement. Somewhere along the way I discovered that this certain melody of the Lord’s Prayer was still under copyright. Fortunately I was able to publish it through Sheet Music Plus. Yay!!!
Click here to buy the Lord’s Prayer (off site product) This link will take you to Sheet Music Plus