christmas piano

[iamanders]

Howdy!

Do you play Christmas tunes with 1-5 (eg D-A) in the LH like in a country tune? Or would that be inappropriate for eg Silent night? Might work for christmas tune made for dancing eg a christmas polska or waltz.

What are your experiences?

[WesG]

I play a boogie-woogie version of Jingle Bells.

[stoken6]

I can see Silent Night working as a country tune.

 

Cheers, Mike.

[Bobadohshe]

The 1-5 style 2 beat musical feel works well for many Christmas tunes, but there are plenty of other textures you can use. 'Silent Night' isn't a good candidate for several reasons.

 

1) It's a mellow, meditative song.

2) It's in 3/4 so instantly disqualified from a 2 feel. Unless you are intentionally changing the vibe and feel. You can give it a country waltz feel if you so desire, it works pretty well that way.

 

Similar to your 1-5 two feel in the LH, you can also do a semi broken ragtime left hand which works well. Or go atempo with more advanced solo piano textures utilizing two hand voicings and counter melodies. For slower tunes, I often do it that way.

[Chris Link]

Lots of ways to make Christmas tunes interesting (for yourself if no one else!).

 

Silent Night as a slow blues or with Mannheim Steamroller-style chord substitutions.

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas swinging like Ella.

God Rest Ye, Merry Gentleman in 2/2 like a Klezmer song.

Santa Claus Is Coming To Town uptempo hair-on-fire bebop.

[J Graul]

I can see turning Silent Night into a 4/4 song with a Floyd Cramer style.

[Chris Link]

I just remembered one I heard last year at a Christmas party, Silent Night in a NOLA, Professor Longhair/Dr. John style.

 

Told the piano player I was stealing that for certain.

[Chris Link]

O Tannenbaum as a jazz waltz like A Charlie Brown Christmas.

[mate stubb]

Tis the season.

 

[video:youtube]

[area51recording]

I'm doing a Christmas show next week backing up a chick who can't seem to make up her mind about the meter on Silent Night.....4/4, 3/4, 17/8, it's all in there.....I'll write back and let you know which one I liked best.......

[I-missRichardTee]

The melody at a tempo that suits the lyrics, is the main thing. Question: I thought the Christian type Christmas music, was frowned upon in public settings. Is this a church environment?, otherwise my question is relevant.

 

Here is a pretty one.

 

[video:youtube]

[iamanders]

The question arose mostly from looking at this famous Swedish melody:

http://runeberg.org/img/sondag/0057.5.png

 

Bars 2-3 have G-D-G, then bars 3-4 have either C-D-G or A-D-G. This is one way to look at it (just doing what I find sounding natural).

This really excludes the 1-5 (country or polka bass) in the bass. Here I am just playing the tonic of each chord.

How would you have played this at a country christmas concert?

 

When I heard Silent night performed by Waylon and Jessie I couldn't tell what was country about it. Christmas carols won't give us a specific country feeling in most cases, right? Although we're having country musicians performing it?

 

[I-missRichardTee]

Upcoming gig with festive music and a few Hanukah songs thrown in.

 

Name some of the Jewish holiday

and festive music songs that are PC?

Happy Holidays

[marino]

I have a whole collection of jazzified Christmas songs, some in an humorous way, some a bit more serious. "White Christmas" is an uptempo swing, "Jingle Bells" is a ballad with Coltrane changes reminescent of "Central Park West", "Adeste Fideles (O Come All Ye Faithful)" has a solemn baroque/jazz treatment, "Auld Lang Syne" is a 4/4 with progressively more dissonant chords. Brahms' Lullaby has a similar treatment. On a more "normal" level, "Silent Night" is a soft Bill Evans-style jazz waltz, and "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" is a medium swing... there are several others too.

 

I wrote those arrangements several years ago in the hope of making an album, but times have changed - so I sometimes play them for friends around Christmas time.