Description
About this book:
I was fortunate to grow up in a home that listened to and loved music. Some of my earliest pictures show me listening to music with headphones on my head and sporting a diaper. I was born in 1979, and grew up on John Denver, Willie Nelson, Simon and Garfunkel, and many of the popular folk artists from the 70’s and early 80’s. As a kid growing up in the small town of Soda Springs, Idaho, there were few places to be exposed to “popular” music in the early 1980’s. The three radio stations that offered a radio signal in my town had very limited varieties of music, and the five TV antenna channels were my only window to seeing what the rest of the world might be like and sound like. When you are limited to records and cassette tapes for listening to music, you are unlikely to become or have a career as a successful musician.
Even with my limited access to music, I have dozens of childhood memories of listening to children’s songs by Raffi, and also songs that I would sing weekly in youth classes when I attended church.
I have several memories of learning and singing songs written by Janice Kapp Perry. By some miracle, they found their way to Soda Springs, Idaho. They always seemed to have catchy tunes and messages which would stick in my head. I sang them over and over again. I can still remember asking my mom if she could find the sheet music to one of those songs we were singing at church so that I could sing it at home with her.
Fast forward 40 years, and I find myself in the unlikely place of having written, arranged and recorded hundreds of songs. This book is my 20th book of piano solos that I have self-published. Like all of us, my story is full of tender mercies and coincidences. No one ever expected a kid who grew up in the middle of nowhere, in a farming community in Idaho where we would attend school up until it was colder than -30 below zero, to write piano music, let alone make a living sharing piano sheet music.
This book and the songs in it are personal to me. As I’ve spent literally hundreds of hours working through various arrangements of these songs, I’ve realized these tunes and messages which I sang as a child literally helped me personally realize God is there for each of us and we are all his children. The words in many of these songs talk about our Savior and have stuck with me for over 40 years. Janice Kapp Perry’s song lyrics of “I’m Trying to Be Like Jesus” helped shape who I am today and still cause me to think before saying or doing things.
Last year, through a series of “coincidences” and tender mercies, my friend and amazing pianist Marvin Goldstein suggested I reach out to his friend Janice Kapp Perry and her son John. A few months later, I found myself sitting in their living room. The intent of that visit was to see if my marketing team might be able to help update their website and add some marketing technology, with the goal of helping them reach more people.
Since that meeting, I kept finding myself starting piano arrangements of many of my favorite Jancie Kapp Perry songs. Finally this summer, I realized it might be possible to share a few of these new song arrangements I’d worked on. After talking with John Perry, Janice’s son, about publishing piano solo arrangements, I realized it would be possible to work with them and share “my arrangements” of the songs that had helped shape me.
I am so grateful for coincidences and for the opportunity I’ve had to spend time with the songs in this book. There is something special about revisiting places, memories, and positive emotions from your childhood. For those of you familiar with these tunes, I hope that these piano solos can bring back positive memories. For anyone not familiar with these songs, I would encourage you to not only enjoy the music as you play them on your piano, but be sure to read the lyrics and sing them to yourself as you play.
These songs were written as piano solos, with the melody singing through on the piano. They weren’t written with the intent of accompanying a singer. However, I have realized they would work well to sing with a vocalist, children’s choir, or even a solo instrument like a violin or flute. However you choose to use this music, I hope you’ll feel the emotion and spirit I put into these arrangements of Janice Kapp Perry’s songs.
