Listen To Christmas Music

Welcome to the Listen To Christmas Music page. Here we will use a few excerpts of well known Christmas songs played by yours truly to demonstrate a fuller sound.

Note: You may need to download Adobe Flash Player to play the audio clips.

The first thing to keep in mind when listening to someone play is personal style. The same song with the same changes can sound very different depending on how a person runs the chords, decorates the melody, and plays with the volume and tempo. Consequently, even the exact same harmony can sound and feel different.

The second thing to keep in mind is that some of these explanations may sound simple or complicated, depending on your level of experience, and at first may not even help you at all. Please read them as many times as you feel is necessary. You may also want to listen to the musical examples a few times.

In our first example the chord progressions are very standard yet I've managed to make them sound fuller. I used a couple of techniques here. The right hand chords are very often stroked like a guitar. This is achieved with a quick ascending broken chord stroke. The left hand walks the chords across a span of an octave and one half to two octaves. Occasionally, the right hand will fill in long melody notes with scale runs, and broken chords.

In this next example the walking left hand is more noticeable because the right hand is not so busy. Still, the melody is clearly projected by the right hand and the chords are played gently yet full. This was achieved here by using different ranges of the piano. Some chords played up in the treble, and a few chords played in the center of the piano near middle C.

Please Note: Of course, there are a whole bunch of little personal things happening when I play. Some of them have to be seen and heard when I do them. Very often, even for advanced students, the subtleties are difficult to pick up by written explanation. Consequently, you may want to alternate between listening and reading. Repeat as needed.

Listen To Christmas Music

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