Christmas Eve/Day 2011 music
Christmas on a Sunday is such an awkward thing for my church! So many people who faithfully attend every Sunday feel that Christmas is supposed to be spent AT HOME! A funny attitude, I think, for people who claim their first allegiance is to Christ, and who insist that Christmas is about Jesus' birth. I long for a high church service every Christmas Day. I am hopelessly out of touch with the times.
This year, key members of the Chancel Choir, Union Singers AND Providence 4.0 were gone on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Our choir director had put in the newsletter that there was no special music scheduled for those services. I emailed, asking if Lovely Daughter and I could provide some special music. Choir Director responded enthusiastically, though later I found out that he didn't let the organist know, so she was busy trying to find something extra special.
What to sing? I asked Lovely Daughter for a preference, but she had none: Whatever you want, Mom! I paged through a couple of books of Christmas Songs for 2 women's voices; totally uninspired.
Then one day I was baking cookies, and, wanting some festive atmosphere, clicked on my Christmas Mix playlist on the computer. That includes ALL the Christmas CDs I own, not just the stuff I really like, which turned out for the good. I don't really like the Neil Diamond Christmas CD, but I let it play, and noticed, as if for the first time, a song called Candlelight Carol.
That's pretty! thought I, and proceeded to JWPepper.com to search for it. It's by John Rutter! I was even more impressed then. Available in SATB (no good); SSAA. Hmm, maybe we could find two parts out of it, and sing it SA. I ordered it. Minimum order of 6 - oh well, maybe Providence can use it sometime, even if Lovely Daughter and I can't.
It arrived before Lovely Daughter got home for break (yay!), but not before Organist took off for a couple of weeks out of town. Awkward; would she be able to get it practiced by Christmas Eve? Lovely Daughter and I plunked out parts, fell in love with it. LD would take Soprano 1, melody through most, until one strain of descant. I started working out where the harmony was the coolest, marking where to switch back and forth from Soprano 2 to Alto 1 - it got very confusing.
"You know what I'd like to do?" I demanded of LD. "I'd like to ask MG - I don't even know if she'll be in town for Christmas Eve and/or Christmas Day, or if she and her family are planning to come to church then, but -"
"And CC!" she added with enthusiasm.
MG is a high school senior, and has adopted me as her second mom. I've tried to live up to that honor this year, mostly by accompanying her on college searches. But that's another story. She sings in school choir, sang in the All State choir last year. She knows what she's doing. I think CC also sang in the All State choir last year, though I'm not sure about that. She certainly has an incredibly lovely voice, so lovely that LD and I would almost rather listen to her sing than sing ourselves.
I Facebooked them, and they both said yes. We set a date and time to get together - just one week ago today, the Monday before Christmas, we looked at the music together for the first time. Half an hour before heading over, I suddenly thought about another John Rutter arrangement, that Providence 4.0 had sung at Christmas, but as far as I could tell, never really liked: Infant Holy, Infant Lowly. Wouldn't it be great if we could do both?! I went looking for it. Ahem. It took that half hour to unearth just ONE copy. That's okay; I have the key to the church office, and know how to use the copier. But it was for 3 part women's voices.
So I started the practice with the question: which of the 3 services are you available for/planning to attend? 2 on Christmas Eve, one on Christmas Day. MG was up for all three. LD and I were going to all 3. CC was not quite so sure she wanted to do ALL of them! So we settled on quartet for early Christmas Eve service and Christmas Day service; trio for late Christmas Eve.
It was hard work! MG plunked out parts for us, and we shook our heads at the 6 flats (with an occasional Fb thrown in), and wondered if we could pull it off a cappella, since practice time with the Organist was going to be difficult and last minute at best. But before the hour was over, they had fallen in love with the music as LD and I had. "That was lovely! Let's do it again!" CC had to leave after an hour's work. We scheduled another practice for the next day, then MG, LD and I worked on Infant Holy for another half hour.
The full harmonies in Candlelight Carol were not what I'd expected, when I'd only plunked out 2 parts at a time, to practice it with LD at home. I spent Tuesday morning after work entering it onto my computer music writing program, so I could play it back, and get the harmonies into my ear. Sang along with it a lot.
Not surprisingly, I was pretty solid on my part when we rehearsed Tuesday afternoon... up til the last phrase, where I had an epic fail! Not only could I not find the first note of the phrase, I couldn't get IN at all during the phrase. We dissolved into gales of laughter. MG and LD were fine on their parts, I think - it was CC and I that were having troubles. We identified the trouble spots ("Only 3 spots!" I encouraged. "The rest of it is GREAT! We can DO this!"), worked like crazy, scheduled another practice for Wednesday.
Wednesday went well. We couldn't get together on Thursday; not even sure we needed to on Friday, but went ahead and scheduled one for Friday, just ahead of Christmas Commandos gathering. But LD got stuck babysitting Friday, due to total communication fail, and CC stayed home with a monster headache. No practice. MG came and helped me with the hot cocoa for the Christmas Commandos.
We met half an hour before the early service Saturday, Christmas Eve, to go over Candlelight Carol. First verse was shaky, but we settled in on the second verse, and we knew we'd be fine after that. We headed into the sanctuary to find our seats. LD wanted to sit with the twins and their family, and Hard Working Son and I wanted to sit with LD. Made the pew nice and full. But then
What to my wondering eyes should appear...
I saw K! I had told her all about the Christmas Eve/Day music, all the John Rutter stuff we were going to sing, she had messaged me that it sounded lovely, and she wished she could teleport here for it. I'd nodded ruefully. It's a 3 hour drive from there to here, and of course, another 3 hours back again. No good reason to do that!
But she said she'd argued with herself about it (It'll probably be lousy weather. It wasn't. It'll be awfully late when I get home. No later than if she went to a midnight service closer to home. The kids might come tomorrow for Christmas. They might not; and even if they do, what of it?), that she realized she wanted to come! So, having nothing to stop her, she did. I teared up; choked it back. I had to SING!
So I got to sing Christmas carols (Beloved Hubby includes scads of them in the Christmas Eve services every year) with K and HWS and LD - man oh man, what a joy. K and I traded off singing soprano and alto - when I sang the melody, she sang the alto, and vice versa. And then Candlelight Carol with LD, MG and CC (to list in score order; I sang 2nd Alto), a cappella ("A Db, please," we requested of the organist), for the offertory. HWS captured it on my digital camera. I felt like my heart was so full, it would explode with the glorias.
After the service, we hustled K into the chapel, and sang Infant Holy, Infant Lowly for her as well. And then she got back in her car, and drove 3 hours home. I'm still tickled all over that she came.
LD, MG and I sang Infant Holy, Infant Lowly for the 11 pm service. That also went well; HWS also recorded that one. MG's mom said it was a shame we couldn't all go with MG to her audition for a music scholarship in February, and sing those songs for the music department.
The Christmas Day service was quite different. Instead of our usual 2 services, Traditional in the sanctuary at 9, and Relaxed and Somewhat Contemporary in the chapel at 9:45, we had one service at 10, in the Fellowship Hall! There were cookies and coffee and hot cocoa and mulled hot cider. We sat around the long tables in the Fellowship Hall (which made getting up and down to sing certain carols rather awkward, but it was okay), were encouraged to have cookies and whatever during the service, get up and go get more whenever, sort of a coffee house atmosphere. LD and I located CC and MG, breathed a sigh of relief. Always good to know the whole group is present. BH started the service asking for hymn requests!! We sang a few that you'd expect (I wished I'd had the presence of mind to request that we sing the 5th verse of O Come All Ye Faithful: Child for us sinners, poor and in the manger, we would embrace thee with love and awe/ Who would not love thee, loving us so dearly?) - but then someone sneaked in one that BH admitted he wasn't too sure about, and that my own kids did not know: The Friendly Beasts! "You want some help?" I called out to BH, who was leading the singing as well as everything else up to that point. "Yay!" called the congregation, as I went forward. He picked out good verses: the first one, the donkey, the sheep, and the last one, and caught on well enough by the end. I was delighted to sing it, after not having heard it much since my own childhood.
BH cut off the requests right before the lady who wanted to sing Amazing Grace. I know this, because she didn't hear him say, "Okay, this is the last one," right before we sang the last one, so she called out her request when we finished it, and he had to say, "Sorry! We need to move on now!"
I didn't do nearly as well on Candlelight Carol - started to screw up the beginning of the second verse. CC had it right, but hesitated when I was wrong; but we pulled out of it and made it through. I was glad HWS had recorded it when it went well!
We ended the service with Joy to the World. A bit of a puzzlement: at the 7 pm service, there was one Powerpoint slide of Joy to the World stuck in accidentally. Seeing it, and seeing BH skip over it, we thought maybe we'd sing it at the end of the service, but we didn't, and it felt weird. Oh well, I thought, he probably means that for Sunday. And as I said, we did sing it Sunday - but there was no Powerpoint Sunday, because we don't have a screen in the Fellowship Hall!
Maybe we'll sing it again New Year's Day. I wouldn't mind at all.
This year, key members of the Chancel Choir, Union Singers AND Providence 4.0 were gone on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Our choir director had put in the newsletter that there was no special music scheduled for those services. I emailed, asking if Lovely Daughter and I could provide some special music. Choir Director responded enthusiastically, though later I found out that he didn't let the organist know, so she was busy trying to find something extra special.
What to sing? I asked Lovely Daughter for a preference, but she had none: Whatever you want, Mom! I paged through a couple of books of Christmas Songs for 2 women's voices; totally uninspired.
Then one day I was baking cookies, and, wanting some festive atmosphere, clicked on my Christmas Mix playlist on the computer. That includes ALL the Christmas CDs I own, not just the stuff I really like, which turned out for the good. I don't really like the Neil Diamond Christmas CD, but I let it play, and noticed, as if for the first time, a song called Candlelight Carol.
That's pretty! thought I, and proceeded to JWPepper.com to search for it. It's by John Rutter! I was even more impressed then. Available in SATB (no good); SSAA. Hmm, maybe we could find two parts out of it, and sing it SA. I ordered it. Minimum order of 6 - oh well, maybe Providence can use it sometime, even if Lovely Daughter and I can't.
It arrived before Lovely Daughter got home for break (yay!), but not before Organist took off for a couple of weeks out of town. Awkward; would she be able to get it practiced by Christmas Eve? Lovely Daughter and I plunked out parts, fell in love with it. LD would take Soprano 1, melody through most, until one strain of descant. I started working out where the harmony was the coolest, marking where to switch back and forth from Soprano 2 to Alto 1 - it got very confusing.
"You know what I'd like to do?" I demanded of LD. "I'd like to ask MG - I don't even know if she'll be in town for Christmas Eve and/or Christmas Day, or if she and her family are planning to come to church then, but -"
"And CC!" she added with enthusiasm.
MG is a high school senior, and has adopted me as her second mom. I've tried to live up to that honor this year, mostly by accompanying her on college searches. But that's another story. She sings in school choir, sang in the All State choir last year. She knows what she's doing. I think CC also sang in the All State choir last year, though I'm not sure about that. She certainly has an incredibly lovely voice, so lovely that LD and I would almost rather listen to her sing than sing ourselves.
I Facebooked them, and they both said yes. We set a date and time to get together - just one week ago today, the Monday before Christmas, we looked at the music together for the first time. Half an hour before heading over, I suddenly thought about another John Rutter arrangement, that Providence 4.0 had sung at Christmas, but as far as I could tell, never really liked: Infant Holy, Infant Lowly. Wouldn't it be great if we could do both?! I went looking for it. Ahem. It took that half hour to unearth just ONE copy. That's okay; I have the key to the church office, and know how to use the copier. But it was for 3 part women's voices.
So I started the practice with the question: which of the 3 services are you available for/planning to attend? 2 on Christmas Eve, one on Christmas Day. MG was up for all three. LD and I were going to all 3. CC was not quite so sure she wanted to do ALL of them! So we settled on quartet for early Christmas Eve service and Christmas Day service; trio for late Christmas Eve.
It was hard work! MG plunked out parts for us, and we shook our heads at the 6 flats (with an occasional Fb thrown in), and wondered if we could pull it off a cappella, since practice time with the Organist was going to be difficult and last minute at best. But before the hour was over, they had fallen in love with the music as LD and I had. "That was lovely! Let's do it again!" CC had to leave after an hour's work. We scheduled another practice for the next day, then MG, LD and I worked on Infant Holy for another half hour.
The full harmonies in Candlelight Carol were not what I'd expected, when I'd only plunked out 2 parts at a time, to practice it with LD at home. I spent Tuesday morning after work entering it onto my computer music writing program, so I could play it back, and get the harmonies into my ear. Sang along with it a lot.
Not surprisingly, I was pretty solid on my part when we rehearsed Tuesday afternoon... up til the last phrase, where I had an epic fail! Not only could I not find the first note of the phrase, I couldn't get IN at all during the phrase. We dissolved into gales of laughter. MG and LD were fine on their parts, I think - it was CC and I that were having troubles. We identified the trouble spots ("Only 3 spots!" I encouraged. "The rest of it is GREAT! We can DO this!"), worked like crazy, scheduled another practice for Wednesday.
Wednesday went well. We couldn't get together on Thursday; not even sure we needed to on Friday, but went ahead and scheduled one for Friday, just ahead of Christmas Commandos gathering. But LD got stuck babysitting Friday, due to total communication fail, and CC stayed home with a monster headache. No practice. MG came and helped me with the hot cocoa for the Christmas Commandos.
We met half an hour before the early service Saturday, Christmas Eve, to go over Candlelight Carol. First verse was shaky, but we settled in on the second verse, and we knew we'd be fine after that. We headed into the sanctuary to find our seats. LD wanted to sit with the twins and their family, and Hard Working Son and I wanted to sit with LD. Made the pew nice and full. But then
What to my wondering eyes should appear...
I saw K! I had told her all about the Christmas Eve/Day music, all the John Rutter stuff we were going to sing, she had messaged me that it sounded lovely, and she wished she could teleport here for it. I'd nodded ruefully. It's a 3 hour drive from there to here, and of course, another 3 hours back again. No good reason to do that!
But she said she'd argued with herself about it (It'll probably be lousy weather. It wasn't. It'll be awfully late when I get home. No later than if she went to a midnight service closer to home. The kids might come tomorrow for Christmas. They might not; and even if they do, what of it?), that she realized she wanted to come! So, having nothing to stop her, she did. I teared up; choked it back. I had to SING!
So I got to sing Christmas carols (Beloved Hubby includes scads of them in the Christmas Eve services every year) with K and HWS and LD - man oh man, what a joy. K and I traded off singing soprano and alto - when I sang the melody, she sang the alto, and vice versa. And then Candlelight Carol with LD, MG and CC (to list in score order; I sang 2nd Alto), a cappella ("A Db, please," we requested of the organist), for the offertory. HWS captured it on my digital camera. I felt like my heart was so full, it would explode with the glorias.
After the service, we hustled K into the chapel, and sang Infant Holy, Infant Lowly for her as well. And then she got back in her car, and drove 3 hours home. I'm still tickled all over that she came.
LD, MG and I sang Infant Holy, Infant Lowly for the 11 pm service. That also went well; HWS also recorded that one. MG's mom said it was a shame we couldn't all go with MG to her audition for a music scholarship in February, and sing those songs for the music department.
The Christmas Day service was quite different. Instead of our usual 2 services, Traditional in the sanctuary at 9, and Relaxed and Somewhat Contemporary in the chapel at 9:45, we had one service at 10, in the Fellowship Hall! There were cookies and coffee and hot cocoa and mulled hot cider. We sat around the long tables in the Fellowship Hall (which made getting up and down to sing certain carols rather awkward, but it was okay), were encouraged to have cookies and whatever during the service, get up and go get more whenever, sort of a coffee house atmosphere. LD and I located CC and MG, breathed a sigh of relief. Always good to know the whole group is present. BH started the service asking for hymn requests!! We sang a few that you'd expect (I wished I'd had the presence of mind to request that we sing the 5th verse of O Come All Ye Faithful: Child for us sinners, poor and in the manger, we would embrace thee with love and awe/ Who would not love thee, loving us so dearly?) - but then someone sneaked in one that BH admitted he wasn't too sure about, and that my own kids did not know: The Friendly Beasts! "You want some help?" I called out to BH, who was leading the singing as well as everything else up to that point. "Yay!" called the congregation, as I went forward. He picked out good verses: the first one, the donkey, the sheep, and the last one, and caught on well enough by the end. I was delighted to sing it, after not having heard it much since my own childhood.
BH cut off the requests right before the lady who wanted to sing Amazing Grace. I know this, because she didn't hear him say, "Okay, this is the last one," right before we sang the last one, so she called out her request when we finished it, and he had to say, "Sorry! We need to move on now!"
I didn't do nearly as well on Candlelight Carol - started to screw up the beginning of the second verse. CC had it right, but hesitated when I was wrong; but we pulled out of it and made it through. I was glad HWS had recorded it when it went well!
We ended the service with Joy to the World. A bit of a puzzlement: at the 7 pm service, there was one Powerpoint slide of Joy to the World stuck in accidentally. Seeing it, and seeing BH skip over it, we thought maybe we'd sing it at the end of the service, but we didn't, and it felt weird. Oh well, I thought, he probably means that for Sunday. And as I said, we did sing it Sunday - but there was no Powerpoint Sunday, because we don't have a screen in the Fellowship Hall!
Maybe we'll sing it again New Year's Day. I wouldn't mind at all.