Sheet Music Archives - Lisa Hilton Music

pianist lisa hilton sitting at her piano in a white lace blouse

Wishing You… 🎄❄

December 20, 2020 by Lisa Hilton

Anyone feeling merry or bright yet?

It has been truly an epic year as we know. Now the end of 2020 has arrived, and we have hope for 2021. So we might not feel exactly merry or bright, but we do know that this year will soon be behind us and knowing that is a mood booster!

I’m not giving up on cheer though, and I’m aiming for merry. I’ll spend time viewing old photos from holidays past, Zoom meeting, wear an awkward holiday T, see friends on the patio, and of course, play the piano. I’ll bring out the piano books from my childhood and a couple new ones too. (I always plan to practice them a bit ahead of time, but I never seem to get around to it, so I assure you there won’t be a live stream!) Holiday tunes, like most music, lift our mood, and also touches the nostalgia in our hearts in a year of dramatic change. Sounds good, doesn’t it?

If you need any music books, I normally buy mine at The Juilliard Store, (your big retailers have them too), or individual sheet at sites like MusicNotes.com. Music itself is a great gift to yourself or others so I’ve included easy shop links below.

As December and 2020 come to an end, I wish you, and I wish everyone, a special time – a time of peace, a time for beauty in nature and a time for health as well as hope.

Happy Holidays,
Lisa

Apple Music: More Than Another Day

Amazon #1 New Release: More Than Another Day

The Juilliard Store

Music Notes

collage of lisa hilton's favorite holiday things

Top Row: With my Italian greyhound Ricky 2016, I love my poinsettias, my favorite holiday tune Middle Row: Healthy intentions, Christmas 2018, holiday fun in my ‘hood Bottom Row: My holiday FaceTime style, homemade latte, Holiday 2019

chandler harrod lisa hilton and al schmitt at capitol studios hollywood

COMPOSING

August 10, 2020 by Lisa Hilton

Al Schmitt, Composing Season, Sheet Music, summer

My recording engineer Chandler Harrod is on my left, and my mix engineer, Al Schmitt (who has 23 Grammys) is on my right. This photo was taken at Capitol Studios/Hollywood, last year.

As we enter August, we can all sense the end of summer coming: the days getting shorter, the scramble to enjoy a few more BBQs, and for me, the period of my heightened creativity will change. Every spring I begin composing, and by August the little song “embryos” have grown up into full- fledged compositions ready to be hatched and recorded with my band to take flight into the real world. How will they fare? Only days remain to polish and practice these new pieces, (often with my trusty Dr. Beat metronome at my side), so we will know soon, won’t we?

My thoughts are filled not only with the music, but in seeing my bandmates again and my engineer friends, too. (I’m working on my sixteenth album with engineer Al Schmitt!) I love recording in a studio, and I feel lucky we can be together and still work safely.

Every year when I begin composing it is a mystery what I will create. I understand that many artists write to a theme or concept, (Esperanza Spaulding comes to mind here). In her book Big Magic, writer Elizabeth Gilbert mentions she waits for inspiration to come to her, while still other artists work at their craft on a daily or hourly basis. I affectionately call my composing time a “season” – this year 5 months – where I let the music flow freely, then nurture the strongest ideas into compositions.

The emergence of a new piece is a rather euphoric experience – much like a new romance – but after that, it’s a lot of work trying new things over and over to get the correct balance. Most of my 9 new compositions are about 4 pages – each page taking several hours to notate. With over a dozen rewrites for each song, the math adds up to well over 1,000 hours. That’s a lot of piano time isn’t it?

The point could be made that as a jazz artist I can freely improvise without any tune or composition. This of course is true, and how all the songs begin, but the composition is where improvisors “hang our hat” as my mom would say – we normally improvise from a form or song and a well – balanced and interesting tune is a lot of fun to improvise with AND to play.

Enjoy your summer and please wish us luck as we record our next album!

– Lisa

Thank you…

Hello and Happy upcoming Holiday weekend…
Memorial Day weekend, besides a time of remembrance, also signifies for many a start to outdoor grilling and better weather generally. I hope that will be true for you as well, although who knows what the weather has in store for any of us! SoCal is back to normal, but we had a week of scary hot temperatures. Along with our ongoing drought, I’m afraid we might be starting a tough fire season, but I hope I’m wrong on that.

The photo above was from the recent marathon – no I didn’t run it, but went to support the people of Boston and their Boston Strong Spirit after last year’s bombing. I had never been there during their “Patriots Day,” and was charmed by the warmth and casual air of the day, the brightly blooming daffodils everywhere and the commitment of the runners. I had a great view near the 26 mile marker, and I admit that I felt nervous about the event, but it really was a perfect day. I travelled again to Boston this weekend for a family event, and coming home none other than the Sports Illustrated Swim Suit Issue cover girl, Kate Upton swapped seats with me so I could sit with my friend! I assure you she is very beautiful and very nice too.

Thank you, thank you, thank you to all who are supporting our recent release, Kaleidoscope. Wow! JazzWeek Radio chart has us at #35 this week, we’re #5 on the international ZMR chart, we recently debuted on the college CMJ radio chart with a #22, and the very large international chart, RadioDirectx has Kaliedoscope at #75 out of hundreds. Our music is played on over 250 radio stations now and we have also had a many wonderful reviews. We are extremely thankful for everyone who listens to and supports our music. As indie artists, we are lucky to live in the age where we as individuals can support the arts in general and our favorite artists: voicing our support, sharing the artist names & videos, and yep, “liking.” So thank you again, it means a lot to us.

I can hardly believe it myself, but after years of promises, I am now selling sheet music on my website! Here: http://lisahiltonmusic.com/?product_cat=sheet-music you can download pdf’s for four recent tunes after shopping on my cart/PayPal. It has taken this long, because it really is a challenge to create improvisation in the context of sheet music. I feel that I have been able to address that issue pretty well, and now offer these very melodic tunes for pianists, or others. Let me know what you think!

Here are reviews I’d like to share, with more coming from DownBeat, Jazziz, Audiophile Audition, Keyboard and others. These are interesting sites so you might enjoy looking at what they offer:
All About Jazz – “One of the few pianists that can meld the hard bop of Horace Silver with the aphoristic impressionism of Bill Evans.” http://www.allaboutjazz.com/jazz-quanta-may-oran-etkin-by-c-michael-bailey.php
Blog Critics/Jack Goodstein: “There are a lot of great jazz pianists, but Hilton takes a back seat to none of them.” http://blogcritics.org/music-review-lisa-hilton-kaleidoscope/
Icon Magazine/Nick Bewsey: “A whiz bang listening experience.” http://icondv.com/ICON/Nicks_Picks_April_2014.html
JazzTimes: “An outstanding collection of tunes…” http://jazztimes.com/community/articles/125152-lisa-hilton

JazzHistory Online: “….grace and expertise.” http://www.jazzhistoryonline.com/Composer-Pianists.html
Jazz Weekly/George Harris: “Lisa Hilton’s signature style is impressively on display.” http://www.jazzweekly.com/2014/03/lisa-hilton-kaleidoscope/ (A nice new redesign on his site!)
Ken Frankling’s Jazz Notes: “One of our finest composers working today.” http://kenfrancklingjazznotes.blogspot.com/2014/04/cds-of-note-short-takes_28.html
PasaTiempo: “Her playing is dramatic and unique, perfectly abetted by her quartet.”
http://www.santafenewmexican.com/pasatiempo/music/cd_reviews/lisa-hilton-kaleidoscope-ruby-slippers/article_eb003c3e-16e4-5fd0-9550-7996bef2f1c8.html

Again, thank you all for your support, spins and love! Have a great Memorial Day holiday weekend!

Lisa