Talking about Seasonal Spice, my new Christmas project




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I have been grateful to hear from so many of you who are receiving your copies of Seasonal Spice.  It is somewhat nerve wracking waiting for the reaction to a CD, and your comments have really helped me. 

Today, I want to give you some insight into the decisions I made on that project.  Some of you will agree and some won't, but you will at least know where I am coming from.

Let me assure you of this.  I do not pick up a songbook one day and choose 10 songs for a CD on a whim, and I don't decide what styles I am going to use on a whim either.  Producing CDs is an enormous investment of time and money.  It is also an enormous emotional drain.  The investment is way too high to go into without a lot of thought and prayer.

As I often say, I have no interest in creating a CD that people will buy, play once, and then toss onto a shelf.  I want to create CDs that people want to wear out.  To make that happen, the music has to be impactful on a deep level. 

On top of that, I have to make spiritual decisions.  I have to make music that I believe is spiritually helpful.  I need to consider whether my music or philosophy of music will harm those who listen to it and/or look to me for guidance in music philosophy.  In some cases, I do not produce music that I think is perfectly fine because I don't want to offend or cause some of my listeners to struggle in certain ways.

Often, frankly, there is a clash between these last two goals.  Many conservative Christians are scared of music that impacts them on certain levels.  They view it with skepticism and resist it.  They want music that impacts them only in a very narrow way.  In many cases, a Christian musician writing for a conservative market feels like they have to decide between bland, boring music or more exciting music that will be sure to offend people.

There is one other factor I have to consider as well.  For better or worse and against all odds, I understand that I have some level of influence with a lot of musicians in Christian circles and especially in conservative Christian circles.  I never planned on that, and still find it hard to believe.  But there are thousands of people that read this blog, and the vast majority are musicians.  They contact me every day for help and advice.  I have a responsibility to not lead them down a wrong path.

Now, I have no interest in turning this blog into a wasteland of useless blathering about music preferences/standards.  There are plenty of sites that do that.  They are welcome to it.  I might change my mind about the usefulness of arguing about music if I actually ever saw somebody change their mind about music.  Since I don't want to waste time arguing about music, the primary way I try to influence other musicians is by my music itself. 

I hope that helps explain the dilemma.  It would be hard enough to create music that people want to listen to over and over if you did not throw in the second, spiritual component.  When you do add the spiritual dimension, things get very complicated and tricky. 

That leads me to this project, Seasonal Spice.  I suppose it would be helpful to just answer some questions I have received.

1) Why did you name it like you did?  Why are there no references to Christianity on the title or the packaging?

I chose a secular name and non-religious packaging because there are secular pieces on the project and I did not want to mislead anyone.  This is not a project that you will probably want to play in your church.  I would not judge you if you did, but I can't see playing 'Winter Wonderland' for an offertory.

I used the word 'Spice' intentionally because I wanted to hint at the fact that the style was also different.  This music is more lively than the music I have produced in the past.

2) What style is the music?

I don't know.  I can't imagine any genre claiming it.  It ranges from the type of music you have heard me record before to some very different styles.  There is a lot of rhythm including swing.  There is a lot of improvisation on there as well where there is no official melody being played. 

Many would say that there is jazz influence and maybe bluegrass in addition to my typical classical-romantic style.

3) Does this music represent a new direction for you?

No.  I plan to keep recording big orchestra projects and I want to put out more projects like Quiet Place.  This project is another dimension for me though and I hope to do more of this in the future as well.

4) What is your goal with this project?

I wanted to produce a project of fun music for people to listen to in their homes.  It is designed to be wholesome, secular music, which by the way is a category that I find completely appropriate for Christians.

5) Don't you break traditional, conservative taboos in this project?

Yes.  There are many conservative taboos that are at best extra-Biblical and at worst, anti-Biblical.  I do not mind going on record saying that and I don't mind breaking those taboos in my music.  For example, there are those that think that you should have only one note per syllable or they think sliding around is wrong.  Those people are not going to be happy with this project.  People that have aversions to saxophones played like saxophones are going to hate it.  People that don't like syncopation will hate it.  People that hate lush chords (I recently read a conservative pianist who preached against 7th chords) are really going to hate it.

A friend of mine was viciously attacked a few years ago for releasing a Christmas project with both sacred and secular selections.  Those that believe that is a bad thing will not like this project either.

6) Which music is more challenging to you? This style or the style you have recorded in the past.

There is no comparison.  From a technical standpoint, this project has been the most challenging I have attempted.  It has nothing to do with the number of notes.  It has a lot more to do with the rhythm and the improvisation.  In fact, there are a lot of things I am not that happy with about this one.

One thing I have learned is that the recording process is a great teacher and you have to get a first project out there before you can improve on a second one.  In many respects, I see this project as a stepping stone in my personal development as a musician.

Hope these thoughts help.  Not everyone is going to be pleased with this project, but of course, that was true for my other projects as well.  It is my hope (and belief) that this project addresses my goals of producing impactful music that is spiritually healthy and wholesome.

By the way, if you have not heard the clips from this project yet, you can listen here.




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