Old Sausage was hoping we'd have some posts of Christmas tunes, so I started this thread.... get in the spirit, and send some in!
Here's Jingle Bells, then I've posted tab for this on my blog now.
Very grassy! You must have a cold room, OR just a large selection of scarves you wish to show off! OS has started this thread, lets have some more!
Here's White Christmas I ran out of scarves already.
Very nice. The video looks olde tymey(as we say around my house.). It's a very nice touch.
OS... I bet you had a Santa hat you could have worn during the video!
Thanks Jimmijames. Barbara, it is possible that I do have such a hat. Let me know if anyone has any Christmas tune requests, or even better, let's see some of yours
I don't have any cool arrangements of Christmas tunes, but I'm pretty good at picking out the basic melody of every Christmas tune I ever knew! But that would be pretty boring!
Here is my Christmas contribution!!! God rest ye merry gentlemen... or maybe God rest ye merry Irishmen! Merry Christmas Kyle
Ok OS, I will pick up the gauntlet, but please don't expect Bluegrassy stuff. By the way, where were some of the phrases from which you inserted into Jingle Bells. They sounded so familiar. Born and raised in Germany, I am very ignorant as far as Bluegrass, although I have been dabbling at it since a fell in love with the mandolin 3 years ago. Manfred
Kyle.... awesome!!!! Not only great playing, but a twinkling Christmas tree, boughs of holly, and is that a mistletoe I spy over your head???
Very nice indeed Kyle, that's a powerful version. Manfred, I look forward to your contributions - the kind of ornamentation and licks I put into that are like what you would hear from bluegrass players like Adam Steffey and particularly Wayne Benson, for example his East Tennessee Blues from IIIrd Tyme Out's Back to the MAC CD. I play it in B because that's where a lot of those guys' licks sound good.
Kyle, that brings back decade-old memories of mine - I don't mean the music (which is fantastic and I wouldn't have expected anything less from you), no what I mean is that little winky-blinky tree: when I was a little boy growing up in a small German town near the then existing east/west German border, I used to go to a nearby park in winter with my sled. By a side entrance, there was a small American military area - just two houses, four Chevrolets and a fence. In one of the windows, there was exactly such a small Christmas tree. It was like a dream out of another world to me (our own tree was of the rather conventional boring kind with real candles). Anyway, here is my contribution, a tune attributed to Shetland fiddler Friedemann Stickle who played it every year to his laird around the late 18th/early 19th century:
A little Medley of Jingle Bells and Feliz Navidad played on a K&S Mandola.
A second Medley of Don Oiche Ud i mBeithil, O Come O Come Emmanuel, Deck the Halls, I Saw 3 Ships played on a Brian Dean 2-point mandolin.
BTW I'm not dressed as as Santa... I'm a Dwarf... that's a 6ft tree... I guess I should have used the Soares 'Y Tenor guitar...
David, that was awesome!!! I love the concertina in the background It goes so well with the mandolin. Nice job!
David, that was VERY nice and VERY relaxed. I would probably have to drink a bottle of red wine to get into such a state, but then my fingers would most likely refuse to obey. Kyle, Bertram and Eddie, great stuff - and what a variety of instruments! Here is my rendition of Angels We Have Heard on High. I played it only once, because I was happy to get it down without major accidents.
Eddie, I just wonder how you managed to strap on a mandolin in that outfit - didn't get your beard in the way? Astounding variety of songs, too. David, if there ever is an award for musically expressing peace of mind you'll get it. That's what Christmas is all about. Manfred, what a lovely intricate rendition! Everybody knows I like double stops and you gave them to me.
Kyle- GRYMG is one of my favorite carols. We have friends coming over for a christmas sing a long and instrument playing on the 20th. I'm going to work on playing it on my Octave in your style. It will just blow them away!!! Thank you for the inspiration!
no sweat. Glad to inspire!!
Hey Eddie, I remember seeing the photo of your whole family in Christmas attire, all with instruments, and I think I remember you saying you played as a group... how about one of THOSE videos? The whole Sheehy Clan!
Old Sausage, since you asked for requests, how bout that old country classic "Christmas Time's a Comin'" ?
Oh yes, that is the most awesome bluegrass Christmas song. I will do that next.
C'mon in Gary, the water's fine...
I liked David Hansen's recording of Good king Wenceslas so much, I asked him if he would mind if I added some bouzouki to the production. He emailed me a .wav file of the tune, and using multitrack recording software (Audacity), I recorded an accompaniment I came up. It's not my typical style, but a soft finger picked backup with some harmonies later in the tune. I'm pretty happy with the result. It's cool to see how someone from California and someone from small town Canada can join forces to create beautiful music. I have a better quality MP3 file of the tune, but so people can easily hear it I added some Christmas photo's to show along with the video. Kyle
Yes, Kyle, that's the kind of practical approach to global heartwarming we need! Nice pics, too, though the cast at the end was a bit lopsided...
I'll say, but I had to make sure people knew how much of that was David's creation. I'm just the token bouzouki player in the background haha
OK, so I got a little ambitious. Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring. Our MMO Christmas music group is playing this, I had to learn 3 of the 4 parts anyway due to varying abilities of people to attend our gigs and here you are! <admission: not quite lip synching, but I am playing along to the pre-recorded tracks in the video - 2nd mandolin part>
What an awesome production - great job. I love the Colbert-style TV fire too.
Great contributions, all! Great idea, OS, to have a Christmas tune thread!
Thanks, OS. I can't have a christmas tree due to young cats, but we do what we can to be festive. This Tune-a-week thing definitely gets my mandolin blood and geek blood going! I've wanted the excuse to play around with multi-tracking and hadn't really had much interest in video until this came along. Wow, all the geek groups at one time!
Kyle, GKW was way fun! Thank you for that.
Manfred! Very nice Angels! I like the double-stops and must try this myself.
As requested by Mr Sore Ears, here's a rendition of the old Tex Logan classic "Christmas Time's A Comin'". It features both of my mandolins, the Eastman and the Summit at the end, for a touch of variety.
Thanks, OldSausage, What a cool tune and artfully performed. This could have been a TOTW I guess. It occurred to me that you were really Breaking up Christmas there. Uh oh, another old tune. Tex Logan..... they don't make guys named Tex anymore.
I was youtubing for Breaking Up Christmas and found this guy on a fretless banjo. Never heard of such a thing. But this was too good not to share.
Having nothing to hold a match to all you multi-instrumentalistic multitrack video directors, I thought I might add a song with actual simple singing. Composed by Austrians Franz Xaver Gruber and Joseph Mohr in 1818, it has spread all over the world. I do only 2 verses of it, in German (without Austrian accent, but near the original style - it was first performed in a church with just a guitar, because the organ was broken).
Bertram, noch ein bisschen früh für dieses Lied, aber trotzdem sehr schön. (a bit early for this song, but beautiful nevertheless) Manfred
Bertram, that was beautiful, in every way!
I haven't been able to do any Christmas stuff, been way too busy. Also I'm not good enough on the mandolin to do anything nice instrumental, but here's a little Christmas greeting to you all from me and my husband's Martin guitar. It's an old Christmas carol I found in a book from the library years ago and it is my favourite above all since then, because of the powerful message - not about the cute little baby Jesus but about the fact that he was born with a purpose. I'm sorry about my voice jumping up and down a bit, I'm having a cold and my voice didn't agree with me about singing today. Merry Christmas everyone!
Hidden behind that cold is a beautiful voice, Susi! Pity to hide it - be confident, open your mouth wide and let it out loud! More, more!
Thanks Bertram! I love to sing, but for some reason haven't been doing it a lot lately. I'll have to give myself homework to sing every day!
janey mack there's some great stuff on this thread - well done to you all, you've really got me in the Christmas spirit now!
OS, great! This even beats your earlier Christmas contributions, IMHO. Is this your own arrangement? Where could I find the notation for that? I would like to at least try to play this. Manfred
Thanks Manfred - it is my own arrangement, I'm going to try to post the tab soon, I'll put a note in this thread when I have it ready.
Great Christmas Spirit going on here. Merry Christmas all!
Wow! That's a nice rendition of God Rest You. I'm going to have to copy that one from you. Nice video project too. Great stuff from everyone here.
Here's the tab for my version of Christmas Time's a Comin' - merry Christmas.
Bertram, I really liked your version of Silent Night. The singing was lovely and I liked the arpeggio accompaniment on the octave!