Music Directors Wanted

Over the last couple of years I have been asked to write two Christmas musicals and one Easter musical for the Lillenas Publishing Company.  The company has assigned me to the Senior Adult market or the Traditional Choir category, meaning classic four-part harmony with real bass notes in a restricted range.  the music is also written to be accessible to those who do not read music fluently, yet it is not designed to be looked at once and then performed.  (There is certainly nothing wrong with writing that way and it serves a great service, but I am not trying to be that restrictive)  I do not write repeats so you can't get lost.  As John Jennings from Lillenas describes it, "It's NASCAR music...all left turns no right turns."

I would REALLY love to have feed back from directors.  Tell me what you like, don't like, wish you could have, hate what we currently do, etc.  I am not trying to create "art."  If you do not like it, I have failed.  It does not degrade me to write with restrictions.  It does not limit my creativity to write with limits.  I had a chart I wrote for Christ Church Choir and orchestra.  I needed a section with a key change that went to F#.  I made the key change with the orchestra up a half step, we sang a chorus a cappella in F#, and modulated to G when the orchestra came back in.  It sounded very creative and nobody knew I was just avoiding the key of F# for the musicians.

Let me hear from you directors.  I sincerely seek your guidance.

Brother oh Brother!!!!!

I have recently been given three choral projects for Lillenas Publishing.  My first Christmas musical was called Beautiful Star.  My new musical is titled Come and Adore Him.  I was given an Easter musical for next season.  We decided to use a classic gospel song titled O What a Savior.  I recently went to Greenville to visit my folks and left a ruff copy with my dad.  The next week my brother Russell was in Greenville for a choral reading session of his music with Brentwood/Benson.  He was talking to my dad about his new Easter musical.  Can you guess the title of his musical?  You guessed it, O What a Savior.

They are in different markets, but what are the odds we would independently pick that same song to start and end our musicals with.  His is already out in print but I have not seen mine yet.  If my book comes out the same color of his, I am going to think I have moved into the Twilight Zone!!!!

To blog or not to blog, that is the question.

OK, so I was with Legacy Five tenor/studio engineer, Gus Gaches, yesterday and he showed me their blog and they had posted video from our new record currently being mixed.  In the video is some great musicians, Craig Nelson, Mark Baldwin, Boh Cooper, John Hammond, Tom Hemby, Dirk Johnson and engineer Pete Greene.  I was also shown in this picture producing the project at The Tracking Room in Nashville.

I thought it was cool that they can post recent stuff like that, so I am attempting to create a blog of my own.  You can still go to stevemauldin.com and see all of the website facts and information, but I will try to create some more relaxed stuff here.  Wish me luck.