Hello. This is Mel Windham, composer and owner of Melkim Publishing. And today I'd like to talk about our very first album, "Christmas Celebration." We're going to go behind the scenes while I tell the stories of how this album came together.
Before I begin, let me first invite you to visit our website: melkimpublishing.com/christmas-celebration. There you can see where this album is available: Where you can buy it, where to listen to it for free, and where you can get the sheet music. If you're watching this before our launch on Nov. 24, 2023, I also invite you to help us have a great first week. I'll tell you how you can participate toward the end of this video.
What you're hearing now is "Joy," my own arrangement. It matches the classic "Joy to the World" with other joyful songs, such as Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" and Bach's "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring." I wrote this piece in 2016, the same year I launched Melkim Publishing. I had wanted to open with a modest collection of Christmas selections: piano pieces and choral arrangements. And so I wrote "Joy" to open the series: a nice happy joyful rendition to catch everyone's attention. And likewise, it opens this album in 2023. And as you may hear already, I have a hard time writing easy music. I play what my brain hears and ... well ... it's never quiet in there.
"Joy" may be a great opening piece, but today's story really begins with "The First Noel," which I also wrote in 2016. It was the last piece I wrote for the grand opening, and knowing my pieces were on the difficult side, I wanted to write something short, very pretty, and easier. Well, it is a little easier, but I've come to learn that it's still "advanced." I just can't think of which notes to get rid of. I hear soft bells ringing at the top. I hold the pedal down for the entire first verse so we can hear the sonorities -- each note of the melody leaves a memory, and I make sure to pause often so you can hear them. And then it moves into a nice accompaniment with slightly jazzy chords, and a return to the bells at the end.
I also adapted this for women's choir, and I posted that rendition on Facebook. And someone named Daniel Carter commented: I really like this. And I blinked ... and said ... wait a minute. Is this the guy who wrote my favorite Christmas song growing up?
That's what you're hearing right now, "Shine for Me Again, Star of Bethlehem." It's a song about a shepherd boy who saw the Star, went to the manger, and then grew up to witness uncertainty when a voice reminds him, "Do not despair, your star is still there."
I pulled out the music, and sure enough, that's who it was. I pulled out the hymnal -- and yeah -- he was the one who also wrote "As Now I Take the Sacrament."
So, I'm thinking -- surely this isn't the same Daniel Carter that said he liked my music -- right? Well, it took me a while, but I finally got up enough nerve to reach out to him. It was little notes at first. A couple of months later he announced a clearance sale as he was closing up shop: he was giving up self publishing to focus on other ventures. So, I hurried to buy his music -- I bought one of EVERYTHING: Christmas selections, piano duos, hymn arrangements, excerpts from his musicals, classical vignettes, and so on. I desired to preserve his music so it wouldn't be lost to obscurity. I asked him if I could publish some of his music, and he ultimately relented.
He let me have a couple of pieces at first, and one is this piece you hear right now: a jazzy rendition of "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel." This is a piece -- he tells me -- that he revised many, many times, because he wanted it to be perfect. He wanted to give us an entirely different sound attached to this old chant, and I believe he succeeded. It's why it's one of our best in sheet music sales.
As time continued on, we became great friends. I provided him with another outlet for composing. And in turn, he let me publish more of his pieces, and he even started promoting my business. I helped him, and he helped me. And we ended up trying several different larger projects.
What you hear now is Daniel's "Silent Night." I know he's revised this one a lot, because I've seen several versions throughout the years. He let me publish one beautiful arrangement for piano, flute, and soprano -- on the advanced side -- you should check it out. And if you know that arrangement, you'll recognize pieces of it in this piano solo rendition. Kind of like plagiarizing himself -- well, that's the wrong word -- he's just putting the material together in different ways to meet different stylistic goals.
There's one more song Dan has in this album: "Snowflakes Are Dancing," but it's quite short, so I don't have long to talk about it. He tells the story of his friend David who loved the piece for years and wanted to call it "Snowflakes Are Dancing." Instead, Dan called it "When Winter Dances," but David kept insisting. Even in the middle of a performance talk, David yelled "SNOWFLAKES ARE DANCING!" and the name stuck.
You may wonder: why did we include this piece that's not so Christmasy? Well -- we wanted to include two original compositions. One by Daniel, and one by me. And we both happened to have winter-themed pieces capturing snow, peace, cold, and wind. What you hear now is my own piece, "Winter." I wrote it originally in high school -- the first movement of my own Four Seasons. Move over, Vivaldi! It won third place in a statewide competition in Georgia, even though the judges seemed to deride my tonalities. If you listen carefully, you can pick up some Chopin quotes in there as well.
Here's another older one I wrote shortly after high school. This was when I lived in Korea, and they asked me to put together a version of "We Three Kings." And let me tell you -- Koreans really love their classical music. It's nearly impossible to walk by apartment buildings without hearing someone practicing the piano -- and several of them were quite capable. So, I tried to capture some of the melody styles I heard every day. After I state the theme, I venture to represent each of the three kings with three different kinds of music. One is mysterious, one is joyful, and the other is thoughtful. And then I bring back the theme to finish it out. I also decided to give it a funny name: "The Three Kings of Orient Are." This makes fun of the inclusion of the word "Are" in many hymnals. "Are what?" Exactly!
And that brings us to the last piece: "Far, Far Away on Judea's Plains." I wrote this in 2016 to finish off my Christmas piano collection -- I wanted it to be really big, with lots of bells. I also wanted to apply text painting -- where the styles of each verse matches the lyrics. The first verse is far away -- and slowly approaching. The second verse is somewhat angelic. The third verse is songlike, channeling Les Mis, and in the fourth verse, the heavens open up -- lots and lots of bells -- so many it takes three staves in the sheet music to hold it all. Possibly the hardest piece I've ever written, and it took me a LOT of practice.
But why did Daniel and I decide to do this project? Well -- I had been in the works of putting together some kind of album for years -- training myself slowly how to do sound engineering -- how to record and master the music. I wanted to start with piano recording and then work up from there.
When I talked about my plans with Dan, he said -- well, let's do one together. What? He wanted his name next to mine? So, we started putting together a general Christian collection, but as time passed, he said -- how about we do Christmas instead? So over the past year we recorded ourselves and I pulled it all together. You wouldn't believe how many hours we put into this.
The result? Now you can hear the composer playing their own arrangements. Well -- except for "Shine for Me" -- I needed to provide a quick sound sample for Jackman Music, who owns the song, to help convince them to give us permission to include it in our album. So I did one take, and sent it off. When Daniel heard it, he said it captured what he had intended perfectly, so he asked me to keep my version. I guess I liked that song so much that I couldn't help but pour my heart into it. Just one take. I'm honored that he chose to go with that recording. But other than that, we're playing our own pieces.
And why venture away from sheet music? Because streaming music reaches more people more quickly. You don't have to know how to read music and play the piano, like you do with sheet music. All you have to do is turn on Spotify or Pandora, and listen to it for free. It becomes a win-win situation for everyone.
And there you have it -- the glorious behind-the-scenes detail. Dan and I are having a blast doing all this, and we have future plans for more fun albums and other projects. Exciting!
Now, if you're watching this video before Nov. 24, 2023 -- you can help us to have a big launch. That's the day after Thanksgiving -- you know -- the day most people like to start listening to Christmas music? If we can get a lot of streaming hits and album downloads during the first 7 days, then that will help many others to hear this music, leading to success ... and who knows? Maybe in 2024, we'll hear these songs on the radio. Wouldn't that be something?
So, what can you do? Check out the website I mentioned earlier: melkimpublishing.com/christmas-celebration. It'll give you the most up-to-date information as to where you can see the music. It also gives preview videos, including this video for people to watch.
You can preorder the albums on Apple Music and Amazon Music. You can pre-save on Spotify for free -- so that you will get a reminder and hear the music once it's available. And most importantly: please share the website link with your friends.
And if you're watching this video Nov. 24 or later: knock yourselves out. Download the album. Listen to it for free on different streaming services. Add the album (or your favorite songs) to your personal playlists. If you have the option to give thumbs-up, go ahead and do it. Every click goes a long way.
Thank you for listening, and I hope you enjoy the music!
