Marina Music feature!

I just found out that my four brand-new jazz ensemble charts are featured on the homepage of Marina Music. Seattle-based Marina Music has been the source for jazz ensemble arrangements for three decades. What a lovely honor to get this unexpected plug.

Check it out!

Swamp is live everywhere!

Now available on all your favorite streaming platforms!

Meantime, you can check it out right here:

Is the Spotify Pre-Save safe for you?

So, here’s the deal on the ominous-looking popup you see when trying to pre-save music on Spotify:

It very clearly looks like you have to agree to let Big Brother watch your every move in order to do this simple thing. Dig it:

I’d be suspicious, too!

I had a 30-minute support chat with Distrokid (the distributor I’m using to get my new record on all the streaming services) to get to the bottom of this.

The Short Version

These permissions are necessary for Spotify and Distrokid to talk to one another and allow the pre-save—and will only be used in this way.

The longer version

Here’s the transcript of our chat…

ME: the allowances required of the pre-save service are alarming to our fans.

DISTROKID: Those permissions allow the pre-save to automatically add your release to your fans' libraries once they click the link. Please rest assured, we don’t have access to any store tools or your fans’ personal details, as their security and privacy are very important to us.

ME: Cool. But, I am concerned about my fans' privacy with DK, as it is laid out pretty clearly in that screenshot, right? I'm not sure how to interpret that any other way.

DISTROKID: I completely understand your concerns. It can definitely feel a bit invasive when an app requests this level of access, but for DistroKid and Spotify, these permissions are essential to enable the "instant" features to function properly.

ME: Does that seem kind of sus?

DISTROKID: I understand why it might seem a bit suspicious, but rest assured, these permissions are solely to ensure your release is added directly to your fans' libraries once they approve it. Beyond that, no other actions will be taken.

Summary

In terms of pre-saving our record: I’d like to believe that Distrokid was being straight with me regarding the purpose of these permissions. If it were me I’d likely take a flier and pre-save the record.

However, I want you to make your own decision based on your own level of comfort and trust with the situation.

Thanks for all of your support, however you like to show it!

New RHBOB album about to drop

Brand-new music for your ears.

Will be released 2 weeks from today: Friday, May 15.

Can you help us to get traction with Spotify’s mysterious algorhythmic Spot-i-verse?

All you’d need to do is “pre-save” our album here.

Thank you in advance!

Brand-new Jazz Ensemble charts!

Hot off the presses!

Here’s a fantastic treatment of Vince Guaraldi’s beloved Christmas Time is Here (from Charlie Brown Christmas). It is scored to feature your flugelhorn soloist, but I've made it easy to feature anyone, whether that’s on saxophone, trombone, C instrument, or vocals (with the lyrics)!  

Clambake is a classic up-tempo tenor battle with smokin’ a cappella sax section choruses a la Maynard’s Cruisin’ for a Bluesin’. And the whole thing sits on top of the always-catchy Bo-Diddley beat. And, in case your second tenor player isn’t quite battle-ready, you can feature your lead alto player instead.

Dream Big is a grandiose-yet-concise composition. It’s built on lyrical melodic themes, an uncommon time signature, several mood changes, and a dynamic narrative arc that culminates in triumphant celebration. All this and it’s still swinging!

Feature your pianist in grand fashion on this lovely interpretation of Wonderful Tonight. I've leaned into the warm nature of Eric Clapton’s gem with rich harmonies and lush scoring throughout the winds.

Giddyup in the Royal Albert Hall

The Devon Youth Jazz Orchestra had this excellent performance of Giddyup! at the BBC Proms.

They’re directed by an excellent musician-educator Graham Dutton. Great work, gang!

Sausage-making: How I Wrote the Underscore for a Book Trailer

I was commissioned to compose underscore music for a picture book trailer.

As you’ll see below, a book trailer typically shows some illustrations from a book while a narrator gives a brief overview of the text. The underscore is the background music under the narration.

Here’s the finished product for this assignment:

By the way, did I mention that my wife Rebecca E. Hirsch is the author of this amazing book? (She is so inspiring to me in so many ways).

*

If you’re curious as to how Rebecca and I made this book trailer, read on. Here’s how the process looked from the composer’s standpoint.

1) Book immersion

Seated at the keyboard piano in my music room, I read the book and immersed myself in the feeling of the text and illustrations.

2) Develop a few different themes

Using my phone’s voice memo app, I recorded myself improvising 3 different themes. I would then send these to Rebecca (the author) so she could decide which one seemed to create the mood she wanted for the trailer.

Here’s what I was thinking when I came up with each theme:

1b: Gentle twinkling of stars, space, sweet innocence of a child.

Theme 1b

2: More motion than the first, but also with space and a warm feeling.

Theme 2

3: This one was a little more generic and didn’t really seem tied to the feeling of the book, though it does use a couple of the motifs heard in 1b.

Theme 3

(My instinct was that offering a ‘wrong’ option would help the other ones seem more ‘right’).

3) Author chooses the theme she likes and sends any feedback

Rebecca chose theme 1b, which was also my favorite (though, I didn’t reveal this to her until after she decided).

4) Flesh out theme to full length.

By this point, Rebecca had made a rough draft of her slides and narration in iMovie. As it turns out, she timed her slides to go with shifts in the music, like when the owl appears in sync with the musical color change. It was truly a two-way collaboration.

To flesh out the music, I improvised while viewing her iMovie draft to make the music support and complement the full narration. (I watched the video on an iPad resting on my piano keyboard’s sheet music holder). When I felt like I had it down—and could play all the way through with out messing up—I made a ‘good’ recording. (This was important, because my piano-performance chops are quite limited. Trust me on this).

To get a clean recording I plugged my keyboard into an audio interface using two speaker cables (one each for the left and right channels). The audio interface sent the signal into GarageBand on my computer.

5) Finalize the A/V

We imported the final audio recording into iMovie and reduced the volume of the music during the narration. Rebecca did some final tweaking of the video and narration timing to make everything fit together seamlessly.

6) Notes:

• I didn’t notate the music, as there was no need. It was easier for me to remember where my fingers were supposed to go, than to take the time to notate and then practice the notated music. (See note above inre my limited piano chops).

• It was fun!

• Here’s the final audio at full volume:

Final audio

hirsch

Now go get a copy of this book for your favorite kid!

Food Coma live

One of my newer jazz ensemble pieces is a Grade 2 jam called Food Coma.

Dig Caleb Chapman’s Crescent Superband with a spot-on interpretation. This was the premier performance of Food Coma at the 2020 JEN Conference in New Orleans.

The ending is must-see-TV.