Silent Night: Mastering Christmas Carols on the Piano and Keyboard

Click on any of the music scores to view/print higher resolution versions

View a range of Christmas Carols Music Books at Amazon.

Silent Night: An Introduction

Silent Night is written and played in the key of C Major, and has a 3/4 (waltz) time signature (as does Away in a Manger).

Silent Night: Main Melody

Several short phrases in each verse are repeated.

The first phrase, to which the words “Silent Night” are sung, is repeated twice. The third and fourth lines have the same 4-bar melody.

Here’s the complete melody written out:

Those notes are: G A G : E : G A G : E : D D : B : C C : G : A A : C B A : G A G : E : A A : C B A : G A G : E : D D : F D B : C : E : C G E : G F D : C

And here’s what it sounds like:

Listen

Note that there are a number of places with a similar rhythm, formed by a dotted crotchet (quarter note) followed by a quaver (eighth note) and a crochet (quarter note). These take up one bar’s worth of time. Imagine that the bar is split into 6 half-beats. The first note (dotted crochet/quarter-note) takes 3 of these; the second note (quaver/eighth note) takes just 1 of these; the final crochet (quarter note) takes the remaining 2 half-beats.

Fingering

Here are some suggestions:

• Start on the 4th finger and play naturally.
• On the D in the fifth bar, start on your 5th (little) finger and run naturally
• Play the A of the 9th bar with your 3rd (middle) finger, the notes should then run naturally. This phrase repeats.
• Play the D of the 17th bar with your 3rd (middle) finger.
• You have time to move your whole hand between bar 20 and 21, to play the C with your 5th (little) finger.

Silent Night: Single Note Bass Line

Below is a simple bass line for the carol using just one note. It’s written so that you only have to play one note per bar, and in fact there are only three different notes used: C, F and G.

And here’s what it sounds like:

Listen

Silent Night: Adding Harmony And Fullness With Chords

In the third version of Silent Night, I’ve added two-note chords to the right hand, always with the melody note as the highest note. The bass line remains the same.

And here’s what is sounds like:

Listen

Silent Night: Alternative Versions

The final two versions of Silent Night use some alternative left-hand chord structures to give the piece a different feel. They may prove off-putting if you are accompanying singers (depending on the situation) but if you are playing the carol on its own for enjoyment or performance, you may find one or both are interesting alternatives. See how you like them!

Here’s how it sounds:

Listen

And here’s the second version:

Listen

Silent Night: Lead/Chord Sheet

Finally, here’s a very simple lead sheet for Silent Night. Notice that you only need three chords to play it: C major, F major, and G major:

Silent Night: Video Tutorials

Want more ideas and inspiration for playing simple versions of Silent Night? Check out our video:

That’s it for now. Happy playing!

View a range of Christmas Carols Music Books at Amazon.

Series Index: Mastering Christmas Carols on the Piano and Keyboard

O Come All Ye Faithful (Adeste Fidelis): Mastering Christmas Carols on the Piano and Keyboard

Click on any of the music scores to view/print higher resolution versions

View a range of Christmas Carols Music Books at Amazon.

The second carol I’ll look at in our series on mastering Christmas Carols on Piano and Keyboard is “O Come All Ye Faithful”. It’s very famous, not least because the tune has been used for other less religious chants in schools, football fields, and queues, to name a few places!

View a range of Christmas Carols Music Books at Amazon.

Introduction

O Come All Ye Faithful is written and played in the key of G Major.

Main Melody

Unlike O Little Town of Bethlehem there are no repeating melody lines in the verse or chorus. Here’s the written score:

I recommend playing it through to get a feel for it. Note the occasional dotted crotchet (quarter note) and quaver (eighth note) combination.

[Read more]

O Little Town of Bethlehem (Attempt 2): Mastering Christmas Carols on the Piano and Keyboard

Click on any of the music scores to view/print higher resolution versions

View a range of Christmas Carols Music Books at Amazon.

This article has now been updated with higher quality versions of the printed music (click on each image to see the high resolution version), plus new audio files so that you can hear how each example is played.

You will need the Flash player in order to access the audio.

Here is another attempt at O Little Town of Bethlehem but this time in a more manageable key. I’ve left the original post up so that you can laugh at my embarrassment, but also so you can practice the carol in several keys (even ones that are hard to sing in!)

The first carol I’m going to take a look at in our Mastering Christmas Carols series is O Little Town of Bethlehem. Please note that this is the version most people in the UK (at least) will be used to singing. In due course I will work on the alternate melody version. Apologies if this wasn’t what you were looking for.

This is a carol that can have quite a bit of colour added to it, but there’s no reason at all that it can’t be played simply and effectively in order to accompany either yourself or others singing, or just for enjoyment.

View a range of Christmas Carols Music Books at Amazon.

Introduction

First things first. For this example, I’ve pitched this in the key of F major.

Main melody

Hum the tune of one verse through a few times and hopefully you’ll pick up on something that will really help your playing…

[Read more]

O Little Town of Bethlehem: Mastering Christmas Carols on the Piano and Keyboard

Click on any of the music scores to view/print higher resolution versions

View a range of Christmas Carols Music Books at Amazon.

Update: Please forgive me! In my haste to put this in an easy key, I neglected to see if the carol was still singable – it’s not (well, it’s uncomfortable). And no, I don’t usually play in B flat major! I usually play in F major. I will update the whole article in the next few days to reflect this. In the meantime, I cheekily suggest that you can get some transposition practice!

The first carol I’m going to take a look at in our Mastering Christmas Carols series is “O Little Town of Bethlehem”.

This is a carol that can have quite a bit of colour added to it, but there’s no reason at all that it can’t be played simply and effectively in order to accompany either yourself or others singing, or just for enjoyment.

View a range of Christmas Carols Music Books at Amazon.

Introduction

First things first. For this example, I’ve pitched this in the key of C major. This means that it may feel a teeny bit high, but it makes for easier playing if you’re less confident. (As an aside, I often play this in B-flat major, but that will involve two flats and some interesting chords if you get that far.

Main melody

Hum the tune of one verse through a few times and hopefully you’ll pick up on something that will really help your playing…

[Read more]

Mastering Christmas Carols on the Piano and Keyboard: An Introduction

With Christmas just around the corner, you may find that as a pianist / keyboard player your talents will be called upon to accompany the singing of Christmas carols.

This thought could fill you with dread, or it could excite you though you don’t really know where to start. In this mini series, I’ll take a look at some of the more popular carols, and show you ways of learning and playing them quickly and simply no matter what your proficiency (having said that, if you are already a virtuoso on the piano, you may be better off buying the sheet music and practising the full arrangements yourself)

Carols often seem complicated, and because they’re only called for during a short period of time in the year, they’re not always polished.

Many carols are really hymns, and if you’ve tried to play fully embellished versions of hymns you’ll know they often involve many chord changes and ‘special’ chords that add colour.

Though that’s very nice, often the song can be vastly simplified and still sound good – certainly good enough for a sing-song around the piano or taking out to the local hospital with an amateur choir. Often it’s enough to be able to pitch the tune or play a basic bass and accompaniment to keep singers in tune.

So, if carols fill you with trepidation but you’d really like to have a go, even if you only get to play one or two in a way that pleases you, stay tuned! You may be surprised how simple carols can really be!

• Away in a Manger
• Away in a Manger (alternative tune)
• Deck the Halls
• Ding Dong Merrily on High
• Good King Wenceslas
• Hark the Herald Angels Sing
• In The Bleak Mid-Winter
• Joy to the World
• O Come All Ye Faithful
• O Little Town of Bethlehem
• O Little Town of Bethlehem (Second Attempt)
• Silent Night
• The Holly and the Ivy
• We Wish You A Merry Christmas

Giant Kawai piano comes to Harrogate

So reports Wetherby Today:

Talented local pianist, Julian Saphir from Harrogate will be playing on a nine-foot, three inch Shigeru Kawai piano, the only one of its kind in the UK. Kawai Pianos are sponsoring Julian, who will be playing the Prokofiev Piano Concert No 3, recently heard in the finals of the Leeds Piano Competition held last month.

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Interview with Dr. Galina Mindlin on ‘brain wave music’ at MSNBC

MSNBC have published an interview with Dr. Galina Mindlin about ‘brain wave music’:

Researchers can turn a person’s brain waves into music notes using a computerized mathematical formula. Some experts say that those notes can heal. When you play the “relaxing� file on your brain music CD, your brain tells your body to relax. When you listen to your “activating� or “energy� file, the theory is that you’ll feel more alert. Called brain music therapy, this treatment has been used by thousands of patients worldwide to treat anxiety, insomnia, even depression.

MSNBC.com: How do you turn brain waves into music?

Dr. Galina Mindlin: Brain waves are translated into music digitally with a special algorithm. It took many years and the effort of a multidisciplinary team of clinicians, researchers, mathematicians and musicians led by Dr. Iakov Levine to develop this algorithm. Once the brain waves are converted into musical sounds, they are placed on a CD with a relaxing file and activating file and instructions on how to use them.

MSNBC.com: What does it sound like?

Dr. Galina Mindlin: It sounds like classical piano music.

Read

Reactable demo: new synth instrument prototype

Right-Half Chow has found this amazing demo for Reactable:

The following film shows the first demo for Reactable, a new instrument that is being developed by the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona. As some of you will know, I’m really interested in interfaces (and musical ones in particular) and this looks like it could be a big hit if it could become commercially viable:

“The reactable hardware is based on a translucent round table. A video camera situated beneath, continuously analyzes the table surface, tracking the nature, position and orientation of the objects that are distributed on its surface, representing the components of a classic modular synthesizer. These objects are passive without any sensors or actuators, users interact by moving them, changing their position, their orientation or their faces (in the case of volumetric objects). These actions directly control the topological structure and parameters of the sound synthesizer. A projector, also from underneath the table, draws dynamic animations on its surface, providing a visual feedback of the state, the activity and the main characteristics of the sounds produced by the audio synthesizer.”

The Hammond Organ: Beauty in the B book reviewed at All About Jazz

All About Jazz have reviewed The Hammond Organ: Beauty in the B:

Vail includes enough technical information about the development of the Hammond’s electrical engineering—shunting resistors, lowpass filters, inductor-capacitors, etc & etc—to satisfy even the most hard-core techno-geek, and more than enough to make the eyes of many other readers glaze over somewhat. Thankfully, most of it is dumbed-down into layperson’s language. For example, readers learn (if they didn’t already know) the difference between tremolo (a pulsation of loudness) and vibrato (a rapid variation in pitch). The what and the why of the “chorus� effect (or what synthesizer players now call “detune�) is also explained; a blending of slightly flat and sharp tones, it was a necessary retrofit because the musical tones produced by Hammond, designed as a cheap replacement for the pipe organ, were too “perfect.�

Other distinctive features of the inimitable Hammond sound, including loudness robbing, key click, percussion and spring reverb, are also explained in accessible terminology.

Read

Dustin O’Halloran Piano Solos Vol 2 reviewed at Gigwise

This release by Dustin O’Halloran is a departure from the guitar-based songwriters and features no songs, no guitars – just a solo piano of instrumental movements in a classical vein which cock a wink to inspiration from Satie, Debussy and Ludwig Van. With richness in it’s Eno-esque simplicity, there’s music here to sooth the jangled nerves of many a concrete-dweller and offers more comfort than a laced cup of cocoa. The ears that be decided to use two compositions for Sophie Coppola’s movie ‘Marie Antoinette’, such is their sumptuousness.

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