Studio pictures

A cool shot from inside the recording booth!  L-R - Dorcas Windsor, page turner, me, and Darryl Neustaedter Barg, recording engineer.  The recording was done at the Mennonite Church Manitoba studio here in Winnipeg.

A big thank you to my brother, Weldon Bull, for using some vacation time to take photos for me.

Okay, so now you know one of the pieces you'll hear on the finished product!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A really delightful sound comes from the Petrof combined with the studio.  I can hardly wait for you to hear what I've put together.

How I arrived at the recording studio

I hinted in my last post that I'd write a little about what happened prior to recording last week.  As you might guess, a lot of the preparation (not counting practising) was done long before April 30.  Two pieces that will be on the CD are from a book I purchased nearly 25 years ago.  Another pair of carols are in a book bought only in February of this year.  The others fall somewhere in between those extremes and more than one book was what I call a 'fluke' purchase - a book I wasn't specifically looking for at the time, but stumbled across and bought on a bit of a whim.  Two of my books were on a clearance table in Feb. 2011 for, if I recall correctly, 70% off so might have cost me $5 each!

Narrowing down my choices was much more difficult than I thought it would be.  There are so many good carols out there, and many good arrangers too - where to draw the line?  I tried very hard to keep a balance between well-known songs and lesser known ones.  Carols seem to fall into the 'mellow' category too (or is that just my bias showing?) and I wasn't trying to make a CD to put listeners to sleep, so I had to be careful to balance mood and tempo as well.  I made a list of possibilities, then narrowed it down until I was fairly happy with my choices.  Then came the challenge of deciding on an order for the tracks.

Advent selections came first - just makes sense to me to 'prepare' before I 'celebrate'.  That wasn't too difficult as there are fewer of them.  But putting the Christmas carols in order - well, that was more time consuming.  When I had a first draft, I went to the piano, played all the arrangements in order, and wrote down the key each song began in and ended in.  When I finished and looked at my list I was overwhelmed with how well one followed another!  I truly had the sense that the Holy Spirit was leading me in the creation of this project.

The actual recording is completed now and pictures will soon follow.  I'll also write a little about the whole studio experience - a new one for me; my first CD was recorded at home.

Planning ahead

It's been about a week and a half since I posted this entry over at the Presbyterian Record.  You might find it helpful to read it before reading the newest entry found above.

Merry Christmas!

It's okay to greet each other by saying "Merry Christmas!" since we are still in the 12 Days of Christmas... Did I write the same thing last year? I wonder if I also said that some year I'd love to have a big carol sing in the week between Christmas and New Year's. Now that we're in a bigger home, with lots of space for the piano to reverberate, I think I should make it a project for 2012: more piano/music events at home. On March 13, 2012 it will be my piano's 25th birthday - that'd be a good place to start. The year could end with a carol sing... hmmm.

How things have changed!

The piano tuner came today, and I don't mind telling you it was more than time. His imminent arrival meant I had to remove all the various books, papers, and sundry articles that find their way to the top of the baby grand. I found, among many other things, 2 song sheets that I intended to write about. So even though we are past the 12 Days, I will share my thoughts on these collections from different eras.

The first song sheet, judging by the carollers portrayed on the cover, is from the 1960's. It was printed by The Bay whose main Winnipeg store apparently had a Christmas Choir that "broadcast each week-day morning from 9:00 - 9:30 over CKY - Listen in." I think the pamphlets were distributed so individuals could join in from home. Here is an alphabetical listing of all included carols.

Adeste Fideles (O Come All Ye Faithful)
Away in a Manger
Christians Awake!
Diadem (All Hail the Pow'r of Jesus' Name)
First Noel
God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen
Good King Wenceslas
Hark, the Herald Angels Sing
It Came Upon the Midnight Clear
Little Drummer Boy
O Christmas Tree
O Little Town of Bethlehem
Once in Royal David's City
See Amid the Winter's Snow
Silent Night
The Westminster Carol (Angels We Have Heard on High)
We Three Kings
While Shepherds Watched

Compare that list to the following, taken from the 2009 booklet printed by and distributed with the free community newspapers.

All I Want for Christmas
Auld Lang Syne
Away in a Manger
Dans une etable obscure (In an obscure stable?)
Deck the Halls
First Noel
Frosty the Snowman
God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen
Hark the Herald Angels
Here Comes Santa Claus
Holly, Jolly Christmas
I'll Be Home for Christmas
Il est ne, le divin enfant (He is born, the divine Christ-child)
It Came Upon the Midnight Clear
Jingle Bells
Jolly Old Saint Nicholas
Joy to the World
Les anges dans nos campagnes (also in English, Angels we have heard on high)
O Christmas Tree
O Come All Ye Faithful
O Little Town of Bethlehem
Oh Holy Night
Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer
Santa Claus is Coming to Town
Silent Night
Silver Bells
We Three Kings
We Wish You a Merry Christmas
What Child is This
Winter Wonderland

Besides the obvious fact that the second has a lot more songs in it, the other thing that strikes me is the number of secular Christmas songs. A rather accurate reflection of our society's celebration of this holy-day in the first years of this 21st Century.

Merry Christmas! (for real)

We are now firmly planted in the 12 days of Christmas. These are my relaxing days; the musical demands of the season are behind me now and I can listen to carols and enjoy them!

Last year, I wrote a little on the subject of sentiment and/or emotion in the carols we sing. The Victorian writers were especially good (it seems to me) at glossing over the hard reality of Jesus' birth. I was challenged by a friend to write something that was more realistic but still singable.

Asleep in the manger; there's no other place
for Mary to put Him. There's dust on His face.
The cattle are noisy! She just needs to rest
with Joseph and Jesus; she feels very blessed.

But wait! There are shepherds who come now to see
the Babe in the manger and His family.
'Twas angels that told them - well, that's what they say.
It would have been nice if they'd come the next day.

The Baby is crying again; is He wet?
Or hungry or cold? Mary's not sure, and yet
she loves Him and holds Him and sings Him to sleep
accompanied by sounds from the goats and the sheep.

Sentiment or Emotion?

Ever since I read this interesting post from a fellow hymn-blogger last week, I have been pondering the whole subject of sentimentality in carols. There is no doubt in my mind that the Christmas season is one which stirs up a great variety of feelings in all of us - and for many different reasons. Some feelings have positive connections, some negative.

On Sunday, Dec. 20th we sang as our closing hymn Long ago, prophets knew (words by Fred Pratt Green). The last line of the final verse is: "unborn son of Mary, Saviour do not tarry!" Tears welled up in my eyes as I played. It seems with each year that passes, my prayer grows in intensity that Christ will come again. So - is this sentiment or emotion? Or something else altogether?

Definitions from the Oxford dictionary: emotion - a strong mental or instinctive feeling such as love or fear; sentiment - [I'm abbreviating here] a mental feeling; tendency to be swayed by feeling rather than by reason.

Merriam-Webster is less wordy: emotion - a usually intense feeling; sentiment - thought and judgment influenced by feeling.

Now really, I'm not sure these definitions make things any clearer. And maybe I'm just trying to justify my own feelings! What do you think? Is there a difference between being emotional about a certain carol and being sentimental? Are these differences simply one of implication?

Merry Christmas!

The Christ candle burns bright and clear; we celebrate the birth of the Baby whose life continues to change the world! Gloria in excelsis Deo!

Prepare the Way - Advent 1

The church year has rolled around and, once again, we are celebrating the first Sunday of Advent. Today I am struck by the discipline of waiting and preparing.

Christmas music is definitely some of my favourite. It fascinates me that many carols we sing have been sung for several centuries already. We only sing them for a short time each year, yet we know and love them and look forward to singing them every season. The discipline part comes for me in not using carols (in worship) that speak of Jesus' birth before Christmas Eve. We are still preparing for His arrival. We sing the words of the prophets. Christ will be our Dayspring from on high, the Key of David, Emmanuel - God with us! We wait and anticipate Christ's coming. Will you wait with me this Advent?

So Much Music, So Little Time

I have had many ideas recently of things I could write about here. Unfortunately, as the title says, there doesn't seem to be enough time - and there's too much music. Music to learn; music to perform. Many musicians find Christmas to be the "feast" time. January will come soon enough and then it will be "famine"!

I wanted to post on November 1st, All Saints' Day, about my favourite appropriate hymn "For All the Saints" and I haven't been able to get a line of the words out of my head since. So even though I think this deserves a longer blog, let me just say that I can really identify with the line, "We feebly struggle, they in glory shine." I do feel feeble these days, not in a physical sense, but more in the sense that our efforts here on earth are always less than perfect in our attempts to praise God and give our life's work to God. As I said, there's much more that could be said, but I'll leave it there and maybe one of my readers will add to the thought.

Christmas in the summer

This was supposed to be a summer of Christmas music. It still has been, to some extent - to the extent that all church musicians have to think and plan ahead to order music, choose anthems, etc. No, this was supposed to be the summer of recording a second album focusing on Advent and Christmas arrangements. My husband, Gord Keeley, will be my recording engineer again, and we'll record in the living room on my very own Petrof baby grand. So, what happened? New windows are what happened - and not on my timetable! I 'thought' (read, 'unrealistically hoped') they'd be in by mid-July and I'd have a good month to get the tracks down the way I wanted. A change in windows means a change in the acoustics of the room so I really had to wait until the project was complete. Well, finally today it is finished. A little late for a summer recording project. But maybe it's just as well - we've had a very wet, humid summer and I doubt the piano would have held its tuning well at all. Is there a lesson here? Probably. Do I know what it is? Not really. But I do know the new windows look nice.

The Twelve Days of Christmas

So, here we are in the 12 days of Christmas. I can't say I've been as bold as my fellow blogger in wishing others "Merry Christmas" although I was pleasantly surprised to hear carols (both sacred and secular) still playing in the grocery store yesterday. If you are like me, the minute you hear the phrase "the 12 days of Christmas" you think of the song we sometimes sing listing all the gifts from "my true love". The song was not the beginning of the 12 days. At the Council of Tours (a meeting of leaders of the Christian church in 567) these days were proclaimed to be a sacred and festive season. Basically, they are the days between Christmas and Epiphany although there seems to be more than one way to count them. Sometimes the 12 days are considered to be December 26th to January 6th (Epiphany). Sometimes the counting begins with the evening of December 25th which then makes January 5th "Twelfth Night" and the 6th "Twelfth Day". Until the 1800's, in England anyway, the festivities of Twelfth night took precedence over those of December 25th. We can credit the Victorians with bringing the focus back to Christmas.
(Information gleaned from various internet sites and from Gerry Bowler's The World Encyclopedia of Christmas.)

Merry Christmas!

Rejoice! Christ, the Saviour, is born!

Last Sunday evening, I attended the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols service at St. Andrew's Woodhaven. (I try, every year, to attend one Advent/Christmas service where I don't have to play and can sit, sing, listen and worship.) As I parked the car and walked briskly through the crisp - no, make that frigid - December air, I was greeted by the bidding bell - and sure enough, as I entered the church there was a gentleman rhythmically pulling the rope!

One carol I nearly always think of on Christmas is "I heard the bells on Christmas day"although I rarely have an opportunity to sing it with others. I wrote the following for the bulletin on December 21st:
There is nothing quite like the stirring sound of church bells ringing out loud and clear to send shivers up and down my spine! I have had a couple opportunities to hear "the pealing of the bells" at St. Luke's Anglican down on Nassau St. N. and I find it a very moving experience. Bells have been used through the centuries to announce events both happy and sad. They bring communities together to worship (church bells) and to serve each other (fire bells). Considering how prominent bells are at this time of year I was surprised to find only two Advent/Christmas carols that mention bells: Long ago, prophets knew and I heard the bells on Christmas day. If you think of another one, please let me know!


I must have been tired when I wrote the above because I've easily thought of 2 more since: Ding-dong! Merrily on high and Ring, little bells. I'd still like to know what others you can think of.

'Twas in the Moon of Wintertime

All week long this carol has been running through my head. I hadn't really thought to post on it until I saw this lovely photo posted on a blog I found recently and have been visiting. The full moon has been casting lacy shadows from bare branches on the snow, and although it has been very cold this week, I have still appreciated and enjoyed the beauty of the moonlight.

Father Jean de Brebeuf (1593-1649)was a Jesuit from France who came to what is now Ontario in the 1600's to minister to the Huron Indians. His insight into their culture and his recognition of the strength of their beliefs is something that amazes me. Although the Huron nation was scattered by the Iroquois, the words of this carol survived in the Huron language for 100 years before it was translated into French. An English translation followed in 1926 by Jesse Edgar Middleton and that is what is commonly sung today. It is still under copyright so I won't include all the words here. I hope you're able to read them in your own hymnal. This is thought to be the first Christmas carol written in North America; I'm so glad I chose to include it in our Christmas Eve service!
Sources: Gerry Bowler's The World Encyclopedia of Christmas, pub. by McClelland & Stewart Ltd. c. 2000; and The Huron Carol, illustrated by Frances Tyrrell, pub. by Lester & Orpen Dennys Limited, c. 1990.

'Twas in the moon of wintertime
When all the birds had fled,
That mighty Gitchi-Manitou
Sent angel choirs instead...
"Jesus your King is born, Jesus is born,
In excelsis gloria!"

Within a lodge of broken bark
The tender Babe was found...
And as the hunter braves drew nigh
The angel song rang loud and high:
"Jesus your King is born, Jesus is born,
In excelsis gloria!"


...The chiefs from far before Him knelt
With gifts of fox and beaver pelt.
"Jesus your King is born, Jesus is born,
In excelsis gloria!"

O children of the forest free,
O sons of Manitou,
The Holy Child of earth and heaven
Is born today for you...
"Jesus your King is born, Jesus is born,
In excelsis gloria!"
Words translation by J.E. Middleton, c. The Frederick Harris Music Co. Ltd.

Advent: Preparing for Christmas (2)

Already we have arrived at the second Sunday of Advent. For a few years now, I have submitted little write ups for our church bulletin during the Advent/Christmas season. Sometimes these paragraphs specifically address the music being used that week. Other times they have been about Christmas customs, symbols or legends. Here's what appeared in today's bulletin.

There are many colours and symbols associated with the Christmas season. You will notice that the tree in the sanctuary is decorated in white, red, gold and silver. Why? White is the symbol of the purity of Jesus Christ. Red represents His shed blood. Christ's death on the cross brings eternal life to those who believe and put their trust in Him. Gold and silver represent wealth and royalty. When Christ returns to earth, He will be crowned King for all time. Hallelujah! There is one apple hanging on the christmas tree. Can you find it? The apple is there as a symbol of the first sin. Adam and Eve disobeyed God by eating fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. You may wonder how this ties in with Christmas. Without their sin, we would have no need of a Saviour and no reason to celebrate Jesus' birth.

Advent: Preparing for Christmas

I was recently asked why it’s okay to decorate the church for Christmas, but we wait to sing Christmas carols until Dec. 24. I think of decorating as part of our preparation for Christ’s coming. Expectant parents do many things ahead of the birth of their baby to prepare for its coming. They shop for a crib, rocking chair, and clothes. They paint the baby’s room and read books on baby care. Families only celebrate the baby’s arrival, comment on its’ beautiful appearance and take it to the room they have prepared once it is born. Advent carols and decorating are ways we prepare for Christ’s arrival. We celebrate and sing Christmas carols when we celebrate His birth.