The Stories of You songbook is the companion sheet music book for David Hicken’s 2016 recording by the same name. All twelve piano solos are included in the book, transcribed by Hicken himself. While most of the pieces are slower ballads, Hicken is an exceptional pianist with a wide reach, so most of this music is at an early-advanced to advanced playing level. Several pieces are in difficult key signatures and a few have somewhat challenging rhythms. All twelve pieces are beautiful love songs and are worth whatever time and effort it takes to master them.

The book itself is spiral-bound and most of the notation is crisp and easy to read. There are a few places where sixteenth notes are a little bit too close together, making the ledger lines a challenge to read, but most of the music is well spaced. There are quite a few chords with reaches of a tenth, but pianists with smaller hands can roll those chords or play them as octaves as needed. The covers are full-color reproductions of the CD artwork. This is a really beautiful collection of piano solos and is available from www.DavidHicken.com as a printed book or a digital download of the whole book or individual pieces. Recommended!

The titles of the pieces, the keys they are in, and the number of pages are as follows:

Chance Encounter - Key of Eb (3 flats)/ C (0 sharps or flats)/ A (3 sharps) - 5 pages
Brief Odyssey - Key of B (5 sharps)/ G (1 sharp)/ E (4 sharps) - 3 pages
A Day With You - Key of A (3 sharps) B (5 sharps) - 4 pages
Discoveries - Key of Eb (3 flats) - 6 pages
Under the Half Moon - Key of Eb minor (6 flats)/ Db (5 flats)/ Ab (4 flats) - 5 pages
I Love You - Key of Db (5 flats)/ D (2 sharps) - 5 pages
Kaiaka Bay - Key of B minor (2 sharps)/ E (4 sharps) - 9 pages
Time Stops - Key of G (1 sharp) - 4 pages
Last September - Key of Eb (3 flats) - 6 pages
Crossing Paths - Key of F (1 flat)/ C (0 sharps or flats)/ D (2 sharps)/ A (3 sharps) - 4 pages
Portrait Nonpareil - Key of Eb (3 flats) - 3 pages
The Passing - Key of F minor (4 flats)/ Bb minor (5 flats) - 3 pages