Our church just performed Christmas at Home last night. The Lord really blessed through this heart-rending story packed with a powerful salvation message.
This particular cantata was done in Reader’s Theatre style…actors face audience as they speak. (Our actors tried to warm up the play by interacting more than the normal reader’s theatre style.) They did a great job for starting a short while before the play. We plan to have our actors memorize their parts for any further programs. Memorizing parts will give them more opportunity to focus on expression and interaction/reaction. So important!
I’m hoping to see them do this one again in full-acting style!
I’ll share a quick story about this particular cantata. Years ago, when my son was around 4 years old…our church in Charleston (Northside Baptist Church) did this play. There’s a scene where the doctor amputates the drummer boy’s leg with a saw. (not literally of course). My son thought it was real. He wouldn’t talk to our friend (the doctor) for the longest time because of this scene. We finally convinced him that the doctor was only pretending 🙂
I received permission from Majesty Music to post the cantata on youtube. Since I’m still in the editing process of the tape…I’m posting several drama highlights from the cantata. You can view them below. The final video presentation will share highlights from the entire cantata.
Another nice Christmas cantata from Majesty Music is Born to Die. I hope to use it for our church within the next several years.
Have a very merry Christmas! I’ll post again sometime next week.
Just sharing a video of one of my newer arrangements entitled: “Angels We Have Heard on High”. This piece was written for the elementary level pianist.
Shelley Roberts, one of my students, played it this year for the Christmas recital.
An upcoming young musician, Joshua Harrison, contacted me a while back about previewing his piano arrangement book entitled: “Christmas Inspirations”. Joshua’s desire is that the Lord be glorified through his playing which is refreshing to hear…especially from a young gentleman 🙂
The book consists of nine Christmas carols as follows:
Joy To The World!
Silent Night
Hark! the Herald Angels Sing!
The First Noel
Away In A Manger
O Little Town Of Bethlehem
Angels We Have Heard On High
O Come All Ye Faithful
I Heard the Bells On Christmas Day
Most of the arrangements are a page and a half and a couple are longer in length…making for a nice collection of short offertories or recital pieces for students.
After clicking on following link…you must click on individual song titles to hear sample of each song…not the book cover picture.
Joshua has generously offered to give away one copy of his Christmas book (pdf format). Simply leave a comment below to enter the drawing. Leave a separate comment if you share the link to this article on facebook or your personal blog…allowing your name to be entered twice!
The drawing will be held on December 19th, 2011 at 10pm EST
The winner will receive his or her free downloadable pdf copy of “Christmas Inspirations” by email from the author of the book: Joshua Harrsion
I asked my readers to provide the name of an ‘awkward to play’ Christmas carol. I would then create an article concerning that carol. “Thou Didst Leave Thy Throne” was the most mentioned piece.
As I was arranging this carol, I had to force myself to stay within the chords “as written”. I could have added a lot of minor chords to “warm up” the piece but I stayed true to the voice parts 🙂
Due to frequent chord changes, the church pianist will have to play in a more ‘chorale’ (solid chord) style in order to support the ever-changing voice parts. There is still time to throw in ocasional dress-ups to create a more interesting sound as you will see in today’s free piano arrangement of “Thou Didst Leave Thy Throne”.
I tried to create smooth harmonic (chord) changes throughout… in spite of the frequent chord changes in this beautiful Christmas carol.
Here and there you’ll see where I deviated from the melody line to create a smoother move for the hands.
Notice how the right hand at the beginning…started with three notes and gradually worked into an octave format. One of my former piano teachers always taught me to write in a more “user friendly” style for pianists in general…to avoid awkward moves/leaps. Hopefully, this arrangement will be comfortable and beneficial for other church pianists. I did keep the early advanced to advanced pianist in mind when creating this arrangement.
Measure #4:
Beat 2 and 3 of right hand is an echo fill-in during the held word “me”
Measure #5:
A sixteenth note improvised pattern on beat 2 is added… to dress-up the melody line and continues through measure 6.
Tip!
Church pianist tip: Learn to analyze other people’s arrangements; applying ‘learned ideas’ to your own playing. Over time, you will develop your own style but you must learn to apply learned ideas as a springboard to developing your own style.
I shared this free arrangement of “Silent Night” last year on my site on the “Free Christmas Piano Arrangements” page. Since I’m rather busy this week getting ready for my annual Christmas recital to be held on Thursday…I will share a video recording of this free arrangement of “Silent Night”.
Now…looking ahead to my next article…I need my reader’s help! What Christmas carol do you find to be the most awkward to play from the hymnal? Leave a comment below…giving me the name of a Christmas carol fitting this description. I will create an article on the “most mentioned” Christmas carol. I will give everyone until Friday to leave a comment. Thanks for your help!
“Thou Didst Leave Thy Throne” was the most mentioned Christmas carol in the comments below. So…I’m working on it right now and will post an article soon! Thanks for your feedback.
I’m hosting a giveaway of my Christmas CD entitled: Simply Christmas
Everybody enjoys listening to instrumental music at Christmas…especially if the music is familiar. I published this CD several years ago and have a limited amount remaining in stock.
The traditional sounds of Christmas ring out in this creative CD featuring well-known Christmas carols. You’ll hear bells or harp in several of the carols. Several of the two piano numbers on this CD are available as printable sheet music in the music store. The main instrument on this CD is piano.
1. Leave a comment at bottom of this article to enter your name one time.
2. Share the link to this giveaway on your personal blog, facebook or twitter and leave a second comment saying you did so. This allows you to enter your name a second time in same drawing.
3. Drawing will be held on December 5th by 8pm EST
4. The winner will be notified by email the day of the drawing.
Important Information:
US Residents: The Church Pianist will pay all shipping (media rate)
Residents outside the US: The Church Pianist will cover up to $5 in shipping (media rate). Any shipping above $5 must be paid by winner.
One of my favorite improvising ideas is adding contrast for an interesting sound. The excerpt listed above is taken from the hymn “Count Your Blessings”. The phrase is the last sentence of the last verse. This idea can be used on any of the verses at this point in song…but I like to save special effects like this for the final verse.
Here’s what helped me come up with the idea: I knew that an A7 chord was the basic chord for the first two measures of this example. So… I played “stepping notes” within the A7 chord frame and entered into a D major chord on the syllable “jour-” and back to an A7 for “ney’s” and ended with a D chord on “end”. The ascending notes in the piano score ran contrary to the melody in the vocal score…creating an energetic drive to the message of the song.
The complete arrangement of “Count Your Blessings” congregational style can be purchased below.
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Over the past ten years, I’ve learned ALOT of theory amidst many hours of composing hymn arrangements. There’s so much more I need to learn but I just pick up tips here and there and put them to use. Now…I’ll share one of those tips with you.
The following improvising tip has made a difference in my hymnplaying; creating a more open, balanced sound. I apply this tip to my congregational and solo playing.
The following hymn example contains “Come Thou Fount” in D major and the improvising tip.
