NEW!!! Sacred Piano Hymns 7 – Jason Tonioli (Spiral Bound Intermediate Piano Book)

About this book:

Every time I finish a hymn collection, I’m fairly certain it will be my last. And yet, I always find myself returning to hymn melodies again and again.

Sacred Hymns 7 grew out of that familiar pull—those classic tunes that stay with you long after the service ends. Over the years, I’ve come to appreciate how many hymns were born in moments of faith, uncertainty, hope, and perseverance. The melodies that endure are often the ones that are both meaningful and memorable. These are the songs I find myself playing at the piano simply because I love them.

When I realized I had sketched out more than a dozen new hymn arrangements, I knew it was time to gather them into another volume. I also have had more than 1,000 requests for more Intermediate Piano Hymns and have definitely felt the pressure to release another songbook of hymns that are written at an intermediate level, are easy to play and sound harder than they actually are to play.

Some of these pieces began quietly on a Sunday afternoon. Others, especially the patriotic arrangements, came after years of people asking if I would ever write more patriotic music.

With this being an anniversary year for the United States, it felt like the right time to bring these pieces together. This volume places a stronger focus on patriotic piano music alongside the sacred hymns that have shaped my musical life. In addition to American patriotic favorites, I’ve included the national anthems of Canada and the national anthem of Ukraine, written as piano solos—melodies that are meaningful to me personally and translate beautifully to piano. You could play either of them as a prelude and people would likely ask you what the song is because they are both beautiful. If you don’t live in Canada or Ukraine, you can still use these arrangements as beautiful prelude music.

Alongside these patriotic pieces, you’ll find new Easter melodies and hymns that have been added to more recent hymnals. My hope is that this mix makes the book useful in many settings—whether played as church prelude or postlude music, shared as a special musical number, or simply enjoyed at home.

Most of these arrangements are written as expressive piano solos rather than accompaniments to sing to. While some songs include lyrics for guidance, they are primarily there to help bring clarity to the melody and make it easier to play. I feel like many composers when writing struggle to have the melody be easy to find in their music. My goal is always to make the melody easy to find so that it feels like your fingers are singing the melody and most importantly, to write music that sounds more difficult than it actually is—music that feels comfortable under the hands without requiring excessive practice.

If these pieces become part of your musical life, if it becomes one of the books that sits on your piano, then this book and the songs in it have done what I hoped it would do.