Hi everyone and welcome back to the Kevin Maher Sketchbook. First, I’d like to send a special thanks to everyone who took the time to listen to my first song, In Honor and for providing all the positive feedback. If this is your first time here, I will briefly tell you that I have been writing music for saxophone for the past 30 years and am posting a new song each month for you to hear. The site is called Sketchbook, because these original saxophone compositions are sketches of songs that I want to be re-orchestrated, re-recorded and re-envisioned as I collaborate with others. If you go to my website and sign up for the mailing list, I will send you a note on the day that the new song is released. Today I am posting song number two, entitled, For When the Righteous Rule Again
As you will hear, this piece is a lot more upbeat. It has some rocking energy, New Orleans jazz type interplay between the voices, and maybe even a bit of Latin swing. If you can, do listen with in-ear monitors/headphones, because it will be easier to hear the different voices within the sound stage. This is especially important for this piece and my music in general, for several reasons. Although I often incorporate synthesizers to add drums, piano, bass, strings and other horns, I am primarily a saxophonist, and I use the sax to write much of my music, just because I get better flow of my ideas that way. I like to introduce several sax parts to carry opposing melodies or to set up a dialog between several voices. Ultimately, these sax parts may be replaced with other instruments, but at this stage, because these different voices are all saxes, the spectral characteristics can be very similar and it can make it hard to hear which voice is saying what and listening on your computer speakers can make it sound like trying to follow a conversation in a crowded room. I approach this challenge in the production process by trying to apply slightly different EQ, compression and panning to place the sounds in a distinct place in the sound stage and frequency range, so that the sax parts are more distinct. There are plenty of producers who could do a better job at this and I welcome their participation, but for now, headphones will help you to hear what I intended better than computer speakers. By all mean (!) feel free to listen wherever you want, but because I also did the mastering with in-ear monitors/headphones (and I am not a professional mastering engineer), playing my music back in your car, computer speakers or home stereo, may give unexpected results (e.g., one part might sound too loud or harsh). I am truly thrilled you are listening. If I succeed in hooking up with others who can help me move this project along, I will post the new versions as they evolve..
If you like what I am doing here, just click the button below to sign the mailing list and I will let you know when the next song is posted. You can hear today’s release by clicking the player above, or by clicking the YouTube link (to the left of this post). With that, I will let the song speak for itself. Thanks for listening and I hope you like it. Peace.
-Kevin
p.s.
Please do share this with everyone you think might be interested or might appreciate it, as the goal here is to hook up with as many people as possible in hope of finding collaborators.
To see the visualization video for the music For When the Righteous Rule Again, just scroll down this page or go to: https://youtu.be/gonfnYEMzGs
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To see the video version of this blog, just scroll down this page or go to: https://youtu.be/BBCspbqidrE
Or navigate to the YouTube playlist using the YouTube Buttons to the left and at the top of the page.