Interview with Composer Kevin Kern for our Songwriter Spotlight

In this edition of our Songwriter Spotlight, Musicnotes.com shines the spotlight on Kevin Kern, an acclaimed pianist, composer and performer who has an interesting story to tell. Even though he was born legally blind, Kevin exhibited his musical talent at the tender age of eighteen months.
After you read our interview with this talented musician and composer, you can find out more about Kevin Kern by visiting his website located at: www.kevinkern.com. Kevin invites you to follow his musical journey through your favorite social sites including: Myspace, Facebook, Youtube and Twitter.

If you’re interested in downloading piano sheet music from this composer, we invite you to visit his selection of Kevin Kern sheet music on Musicnotes.com. At the end of the interview, read a message from Kevin Kern written especially for you!

Can you share with us how you first fell in love with music?

How has your blindness affected your ability to learn and compose sheet music?

Can you tell us a little bit about how you started your career as a composer and professional performer?

I began playing professionally in my early teens.  I had a group in high school that warmed up for several major jazz artists including Dave Brubeck among others.  I was drawn to jazz both as a player and a composer because it made very few demands on my inability to notate thoroughly.  The improviser’s art was ideally suited to a blind musician with lots of ideas but few ways of communicating them effectively.   For this reason, jazz has always been special to me and I still love to play and compose music in that style.

As far as composing goes, initially, I would get a good idea and then forget some key part of it before having the chance to put it on tape.  Once music production software like Cakewalk and Sonar became accessible for the blind, I could not only hear my melodies, but my orchestrations as well.  This last element was crucial because it helped me develop the musical voice my fans know today.  However, it wasn’t until Sibelius notation software was made more blind-friendly that all the pieces came together.

What inspires you to write music?

How has your blindness affected your ability to arrange your sheet music for others to play?

As a composer, you’ve also written for film in addition to producing your own CDs. What is the most rewarding aspect of working with other musicians?

To answer your other question, the greatest part of working with other musicians is hearing my ideas come leaping off the page exactly the way I imagined them.  I feel as though the world has been unlocked for me.  The exhilaration that hearing my music played by others brings me is simply indescribable.  Whether I’m hearing students play my music in their end-of-year recital, or rehearsing my arrangements with local professional musicians  in a concert hall half way around the world, the thrill of hearing my notes come back to me is simply one-of-a-kind.  I don’t imagine I’ll ever quite get over it.

We can’t imagine what it would be like to write music without clear vision.  How do you do it?

One song that a lot of Musicnotes fans really enjoy is “The Enchanted Garden.” Can you share a little history about the song?

The Enchanted Garden” was the title track for my debut album released in 1996.  The song was inspired in part by the view of the garden I saw from my window as I composed.  It was one of those rare things where I simply woke up one morning and sat at the keyboard and began to sketch.  The ideas kept flowing and flowing.  I first thought of the key of D Flat, a key that most people don’t use very often.  As I looked out the window, I started hearing the opening phrase.  The melody just seemed to flow from there.   Remember that I couldn’t write anything down in the 90s, so the idea had to be complete on solo piano.  To make “the garden” lush, I filled it out with the sounds of an orchestra for the CD.  In the end, the key was to translate the sights and sounds of the world around me into the language of the piano.  I feel my best music expresses my world in the piano’s native language.

A Message from Kevin Kern

Kevin Kern would like to know which of his songs you would love to have sheet music for. As Kevin described, offering you the chance to play his sheet music means a lot to him, and both Kevin and all of us here at Musicnotes.com enjoy fulfilling your sheet music requests.

After you’ve reviewed the Kevin Kern sheet music on Musicnotes.com, we invite you to suggest sheet music for your favorite Kevin Kern song so that we can arrange it for you.

Musicnotes.com would like to extend our thanks and gratitude to Kevin for the time and energy he devoted to this interview. We wish him continued success on his musical endeavors!