The Sister Act duology is one of my favorite things to watch over and over again. Both movies are great, but i like the second one just a little bit more. That being said, the first one was great. So great that I tend to listen to songs from the soundtrack several times. One of those tracks is “Hail Holy Queen.” From what I know, this hymn is standard in the Catholic tradition; hence the convent in the movie singing it as a choir (both poorly and beautifully…watch the movie and you’ll see what I mean).
Why do I like this song so much?
There are a couple reasons why I like this song from the movie. And both of those reasons line up with the vibe it gives off (and I’m talking about the version after Sister Mary Clarence takes over as director).
The first reason I like the song has to do with the way it starts off. Classic, clean, and wholesome. The voices were well-tuned and blended very nicely. From the start all the way to the D major chord, marking the end of the first part of the song.
The second reason why I like this song has to do with second part of the song. For those that haven’t seen the movie, “Sister Mary Clarence” is actually a Las Vegas lounge singer under cover from her dangerous, abusive lover. In her lounge acts, she performs many upbeat oldies songs (mainly rock and Motown). She transfers this style to the choir and has them rockin’ and rollin’ through the second part of “Hail Holy Queen.” Think of it this way. It was Catholicism meets the Baptist church.
So what made you decide to cover the song?
So my decision to cover the song kind of came out of the blue. Recently this year, since the pandemic, I saw a bunch of my music friends on Facebook doing multitrack videos. These are videos where there’s one person performing a song or piece of music in multiple parts simultaneously. It looked really cool and I eventually decided that I wanted to do the same thing.
So I knew that I wanted to try multitracking out, but I didn’t know what song I wanted to cover. Obviously, I wanted to do something with harmony to mimic being my own saxophone quartet. But I just wasn’t sure of what to play. I then thought about doing something sacred and religious. A good bulk of what I play is jazz and gospel. And let’s not forget my occasional classical side.
I took all of that into consideration and all of a sudden, “Hail Holy Queen” from Sister Act popped into my head. Don’t ask me how it did. It was just one of those things that just kinda happened.
I studied the song and wrote out each part that I would play. I then recorded each part (using the original recording for guidance). To the potential dismay to some, I only recorded the first part of the song. It was my first time multitracking and I just wanted to try it out. NEWS FLASH: I loved it! The process is a little long, but I had fun making the video.
In regards to the audio, everything turned out how I intended it to. It took hours of recording and editing, but it was worth it to know that I put out a great final product. For some reason, when I posted it to Facebook, it turned out to be a little blurry (I promise it wasn’t that way when I uploaded it). Nonetheless, I was satisfied with the outcome and I hope that you all will feel the exact same way!
Response Magic