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Those of you who are working on Christmas music - do you learn, and polish to perfection, only one, or two, or three pieces as you do with your lesson pieces, or do you try to plod your way through the whole book so that by Christmas you have a variety of pieces that you can enjoy? I'm finding that each piece is taking longer than I would expect to perfect, even though they are easier than my lesson pieces. So I've basically been playing a different one every day or two, moving on to the next one without perfecting, figuring that I will just work my way through the whole book several times. Just wondering if this is a good idea, or if I should be concentrating on just a couple of pieces. I have one book of traditional carols, and one of the fun stuff like Frosty and Rudolph, and I want to play them all.

Hi Mom3Gram,
This year, I have decided to play four different Christmas tunes and I am treating them like my lesson pieces (i.e., trying to play them as well as I can). I, too, wish I could play all of the pieces in the book I have (Dan Coates Christmas collection), but I have discovered, like you, that they take some time to learn. I suspect that over the years, as I learn to read music better I could play a wider variety with less preparation. One of the reasons that my teacher recommended the particular book I have is that I could use it for years and years. At some point it will be too easy (certainly isn't now) but that I would like that around the holiday times because I could just flip it open and play.

i hear you i have the same problem, i just worked out oh christmas tree on my keyboard by ear. but i always tend to "want to get thru the book" and anxious to play other pieces, but i also find it hard to learn many pieces at once, its almost too much information, so i would just perfect a couple of them then dont move on till you know you got it.


although i dont practice what i preach lol.

I'm working on about 10 pieces. There are only a couple that are challenging and require much time to polish. The rest are way below my current level but they still sound nice. That way I have a couple that are treated like lesson pieces, the rest are easy enough to do without much effort. All bets are off with anyone listening though.

That's what I'm aiming for. To be able to just open my Christmas books and play. And maybe add one or two new more challenging pieces each year.



Sounds like a good plan.

This where understanding basic chords and voicings really help.

Most Christmas songs have a I-IV-V structure so if you know one, you know them all. All you need to do is play the melody on top.

So when playing at Christmas, I usually play the melody and chords by ear using this understanding. Then I have a couple of better arranged tunes that I really practiced.

This style of playing can be learned...

agreed. most are easy and can be played by ears. the harmony structure may not be totally correct, but alota times you can get the melody on point. after awhile of playing, it becomes second nature and you don't even need the sheet music, unless its a complicated piece. but for some reason i was lying in bed and had oh christmas tree stuck in my head from charlie brown christmas, couldnt stop thinking about it then worked it out on the piano. i found sheet music of it online but the rhythm is above my level right now.

Ha! My "playing by ear" consists of poking around at the keys until I find one that could possibly be the first note in the song. Then poking around until I find one that sounds good as the second note. Etc... And I'm talking very simple melodies - no chords. I did that last year for a couple of Polish Christmas carols that I remember from childhood because all the music I could find for them was way over my head. I wrote it out in letters, and then transcribed it into notes. I managed to get something that resembled the tune after a lot of trial and error. I'm not sure what I did with them, so I would probably have to do the whole process over again if I wanted to play them now. I'm much better at just playing with easy sheet music.

Maybe you can pick a few challenging ones to practise, then the easy ones you can use to improve your sight reading skills. It's good to develop an ability to sight read carols. I've been roped into accompanying at other people's houses before, and usually have to use whatever sheet music they have lying around.

I also tend to have a few challenging pieces, that I start early-ish, and then many easy pieces that I can just play through at sightreading level. Many years ago, I bought one of those easy piano books of Christmas songs, and every year I would play through those. Last year I bought a few new books, still very easy and way below my current level. This way I can play a whole lot of music, some of the peices are actually very advanced and sound nice, and others are simpler but still match the "atmosphere."

One thing about easy piano arrangements is that they are usually not in the original key, so they tend to work best as solo pieces. I also have a couple big Christmas song books that have piano, vocals, and guitar chords. With those arrangements, the chords are fairly intricate and LH and RH parts are more than I could do sightreading. But when people want to sing, I have used those arrangements to just play the LH, and maybe one note in the RH (otherwise I won't be able to keep up), but that way it provides an accompaniment for the singers and is actually very fun.

I would recommend the books I have (the easy piano ones). Depending on your level, you would be able to play a lot this year, or you could "grow into them," adding pieces each year. I think the books I have are very accessible. I am not at home now, but if you're interested, let me know and I will post the titles here.

BTW, the Christmas pieces I'm working on right now are David Nevue's arrangement of God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, Carol of the Bells, and I plan to add Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence, and maybe a fancy Christmas medley, before the end of the month. Then when December rolls around, I'll get out my easy piano books and the big Christmas songbooks and start playing through those pieces. I love Christmas!

Oh, I love David Nevue's "Carol of the Bells" and "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen"! They are definitely on my list for the future. Some day when my brain and my fingers work a little faster.

Yes, ShiroKuro, I'd like to know the titles of any easy Christmas books that you recommend. Right now, I'm working with level 1 and level 2 books, but as you said, I can grow into them.

I've been playing Christmas music all day today. I won't do that every day, as I don't want to get sick of them before Christmas gets here, but once I got going, I didn't want to stop.

Jazzwee, could you or anyone for that matter explain the I-IV-V chord structure? I know it has something to do with the circle of fifths and the first, fourth and fifth note of a certain scale, but I don't understand it well enough.

These are the five Christmas songs I've narrowed myself down to, due to Christmas drawing near:

1. Silent Night.
2. Joy To The World.
3. Jingle Bells.
4. Angels We Have Heard On High.
5. Oh Holy Night.

I'd like to be able to play a bit more advanced versions, at least not the one or two note picking ones, but I don't know if I'm able to reach my goal in six weeks.

Can anybody recommend a good Chrismas carol collection books with advanced versions? If I order now I'm not sure the book(s) will be overseas in time, but I'll take the chance, then I'll just start practising for next Christmas! Is that Dan Coates book good?

Pianotehead, if you want advanced, check SheetMusicPlus and look at their SMP grades. I have found that to be fairly reliable. Are you able to order download-able sheet music, like through SheetMusicDirect? If so, then you don't have to worry about delivery times, and they let you see the first page of each score they sell. All the more advanced Christmas pieces I play I have found in various places and collected one by one, rather than from a single book.

Mom3Gram, here are the easy piano books that I have:



This is a Hal Leonard book, and there are a ton of Hal Leonard collections, one very similar to this that has more intermediate arrangements, with piano/vocal/guitar chords (that's the one I use for accompanying singers). Anyway this one is nice because the arrangements are easy, but for example everything is not in the key of C (I hate it when they do that!!) Anyway, I use this for sightreading and barely-prepping pieces.

Then there are the Bastien "Popular Christmas Songs" books:



[img[http://assets.sheetmusicplus.com/product/190X400/312507.jpg[/img]





Depending on your levels, these may be super easy, but that makes them extra good for sightreading! Plus unlike the Hal Leonard book, these are all thin, making them easier to fit ina suitcase for visiting family! One drawback is they don't have the chord names written in.

Hmmm, in looking at SheetMusicPlus to get these photos, I see the Bastien series also has a separate series called "Christmas Favorites," these look like they're graded the same, but might actually have a few more pieces per book, and have the chord names written in. And are maybe geared for adult students?? Shoot, I might have chosen those had I known about them two years ago when I got the ones I have now. Oh well, the ones I have have nice pictures!

Anyway, hope this is helpful. If you were only going to get one, I recommend the Hal Leonard one. (Though, who only gets one scorebook!

Let us know what you choose.

Thank you ShiroKuro, I've been reviewing Sheetmusicplus, saw that they grade their books and they usually get good ratings. A music dealer downtown told me the shipping costs are very high here way up north, could even be as pricy as the books themselves.

However he said he could order books for me he didn't have, probably orders from a dealer in Europe, Denmark, Britain or Sweden maybe.

Assuming you can play the melody by ear, you can kind of figure it out by trial and error quite quickly.

Using only I-IV-V chords, you can try it on the tunes above and start at I.

So what's a I-IV-V? In the key of C it would be
I = CMaj
IV = FMaj
V = G7

Just from my constant exposure to this, I can guess without a piano that Silent Night is

| I | I | V | I | IV | I |....
or
| Cmaj | Cmaj | G7 | Cmaj | Fmaj | Cmaj |

Since there are only 3 possibilities and you always start with I, there really are only two to choose from (IV and V).

All the above Christmas Carols fit into this.

This obviously gets too boring in its simplistic mode but over the years, I've learned to voice the above chords in more interesting ways so after awhile it sounds like an arrangement. This involves doing two handed voicings with a lot of chord reharmonizations but that takes time to learn,

Now this doesn't work on Jazzed up tunes like Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting...) or Vince Guaraldi stuff. But it does cover a lot. So I would spend the time arranging the complex ones and the Jingle Bell stuff requires no practice at all.

This kind of I-IV-V is automatic to guitar players (which I was one of a long time ago...)

As a quickie to I-IV-V, think of the alphabet in the key of C. C,D,E,F,G...

I-C II-D III-E IV-F V-G

1 and 4 are always major and V is always a dominant 7. Why? It's just the way it is.

mom - if you're "plodding your way through the whole book" without, as you say, "perfecting" any of the pieces how many of this "variety of pieces" will you actually enjoy playing? Sure - you'll have some pleasure at being able to play them to some extent, and a certain well-deserved sense of accomplishment, but will you really be satisfied with how you perform any of them?



Will you actually have the time and energy to work your way through the book several times, with everything else going on at this time of year - not to mention your regular lesson pieces?

While I can understand and appreciate your desire to be able to play a sizable number of Christmas pieces (I have the same desire) and your apparent impatience to be able to do so, it might be better if you learned only several pieces fairly well each season and let their sum accumulate over a number of years.

The Dan Coates Christmas collection that GlassLove mentioned is excellent and I recommend it for people at the "late beginner" or "early intermediate" level.

JF

P.S. Keep in mind everyone that Mr Super-Hunky usually starts a Christmas music performance thread every year in early December!

Thanks, ShiroKuro, that Hal Leonard Book looks good. I will check that out on Sheetmusicplus.com. I also liked the looks of the Faber "Christmas for All Time" that I saw recommended on another thread.

By the way, one of the books I'm working with is the Bastien Christmas Favorites (level 1), and I played through the second half of the book yesterday. The first half I learned last year and still play well. I can't just "sight read" those perfectly, but I can work them up to "almost note perfect" in a day or so, although sometimes not at tempo. I considered picking up a level 2, but I also have an Alfred Adult level 1 that's a little harder, and an Alfred 1B with all the fun "kiddie" songs like Frosty and Jingle Bell Rock. I haven't made it all the way through those two yet. That's kind of why I asked my original question. I would love to be able to play all of these well, and then start working on more intermediate stuff next year.

John, you are right, and I will go slower through the remaining pieces in the other two books, and I think I will get the Dan Coates book and start working on one piece at a time. As Glasslove said, I can grow into it.

Jazzwee, thanks for explaining the chord stuff again. I think when I wrote up those Polish carols last year I had tried to add the chords. If I can't find them I will do them again, and use chords. I think I did them all in C, but I may be able to transpose them to some other keys now.

As for the Christmas performance thread - I still haven't figured out how to get a recording from my digital into my computer, since they are on different floors of the house. I guess I need to ask Santa for a laptop or a recording device. LOL

P.S. ShiroKuro, those Bastien Christmas Favorites are also for kids, and have nice black and white drawings in them. LOL.

Thank you jazzwee, will bookmark this thread and try this out on some occasion. Most of the versions of Silent Night I've seen are in C major, but some want to play it in B-flat major.

Don't even have to rely on my ear for the melody, it's in countless MIDIS around. But the trick is also to substitute the melody with chords (chord around it), is that what you're saying?

"Trick" #1 is to voice Cmaj7, Fmaj7 and G7 in more interesting ways.

This involves, as an example, voicing a CMaj as Cmaj7(9)(13) for example. Just to give you a picture of how I do this without thinking, the notes to Cmaj7(9)(13) are:

C E G B D A. (if played with no inversion).

I might play that two handed like this:

LH C G B
RH D E
Melody on top played with pinky.

or

LH C G A
RH B E
Melody on top played with pinky.

etc. depends on what the melody note is. The possibilities here are endless and the C doesn't necessarily end up as the first note either. It could be the A or the G.

Because the chord is spread out, it has a very full sound and is very supportive of the melody. And it sounds more arranged, particularly when you arpeggiate it.

To play like this, you'll need to learn some music theory so you know what it means to have chord extensions like (9)(13)(11) and when to use them. I'm not going to try to explain here but I'm just trying to stimulate your thinking intellectually.

It's something we learn when playing jazz. Do you see know how it sounds pre-arranged yet we just do this on the fly?

Thank you very much for your patience, jazzwee, you've been a great help. I have a lot to work on now. I'm a beginner but I believe I can work out at least the simpler songs using your guidelines, and other stuff I've learned.

Yes and I've studied some music theory, major and minor chords/scales and I'm beginning on seventh chords, along with 9/11/13 extensions. Inversions and scale degrees I have to work more on.