Behind the Creation of My Christmas Album "Light Has Come"
One of my biggest goals in life is to be a student of music. The process of making music can take on a life of its own. It begins to have a personality with wisdom and insight. It teaches me about the greater things in life… how to be more open to change, how to be more patient, how find perfection in the imperfections, etc. One of the greatest lessons I've learned as a student of music is learning how to capitalize on the limitations of resources.
My latest Christmas album Light Has Come is the outcome of limited resources. The resources I felt I ran out of was common Christmas songs! My Advent Christmas discography over the last decade or more has covered many of the world’s favorite sacred Christmas songs. I originally recorded them in a series of EP's, but recently put all sixteen songs on a longer CD. (Click HERE to see Advent Anthology Track List)
After recording all of these Christmas songs from 2008 until 2013, there was a three year pause on Christmas music. To be honest, it was because I felt I had recorded most of the popular sacred Christmas songs that fit within the parameters of being traditional, moderately well-known, memorable, and with a general chordal structure that lends itself to modern arrangements. I didn't have any songs left! (OK, in all fairness, “Come Thou Long Expected Jesus” is pretty well known. But part of the task for myself is being able to look at the song from a different angle than the rigid structural drudgery we often associate with Christmas songs. I needed to find a way to contextualize the song. For some reason, I didn't find a way of doing that until last year.)
So after three years of taking a break from recording Christmas music, I felt it was time to see what I could do. Without the default number of popular Christmas songs to pick from, I was forced to dig a little deeper. This is where some wonderful things happened.
Discovering Some Hidden Gems
I found some hidden gems to arrange. “I Wonder as I Wander” is not exactly an unknown song. However, it's not in google’s top ten sacred Christmas songs for sure. I've become a student of incredible melodies and lyrics from songs such as this. The title itself is right up my alley of Christmas songs that capture the imaginative, mysterious, dreamy, ethereal, nostalgic act of God "dwelling among us." Arranging this song with a bed of strings and a mysterious minor arpeggio played by harp joined by the choir felt second nature. The sound seemed built into the title. The most fantastic part, though, was writing the short violin interludes recorded in Russia by violinist Maria Grigorveya. Although the lyrics to the song may seem brief, I wanted to tell the story without words through these violin melodies.
I think it is safe to say that the song “Wexford Carol” isn't much of a known Christmas song. I found it via a beautiful performance on Youtube featuring Alison Krauss and Yo-Yo Ma. Not only did I find the lyrics beautiful and simple, but I loved the modal melody, which has a sort of Celtic root to it. I don't typically write in modes like this, so incorporating them into modern style music is a real twist and a lot of fun. If I recall correctly, it took a lot of kick beat "mangling" to finally arrive at the off-kilter 6/4 beat that drives the song. A lot of musical elements that sound simple and smoothly executed in the end often start out as a mess in the beginning. Hence, the lesson of finding something of value in the mess.
The Writing of Four New Christmas Songs
So as I found myself short of common Christmas songs that I wanted to arrange, I gave myself the task of writing another original Christmas song (my first was recorded on the Advent Christmas Vol.3 EP and is titled "The Earth Stood Still".) My practice of songwriting goes like this… if I need ten songs, then I write 100 and pick the best ones. If I need one song, I write ten songs and pick the best. OK, I break my own rules sometimes. In this case, I wrote four, not 10. But after writing these four, I figured they were all worth releasing, so I got four instead of one!
"Light has Come"
The intention was for this to be a simple Christmas song that anyone could sing along to. To my pleasant surprise, the arrangement ended up being a lot more anthemic than I originally imagined. I think my favorite part was recording the electric guitars. It is literally just two strummed notes. But the "vibe" of that guitar gets me going. You can solo the guitars from the free stems offered on my website online. (Download free stems from the album HERE.)
"This Night"
This song is simply an attempt to paint a picture of the nativity scene in a very personal, human way. My goal with Christmas music is to make a historical event more personal. And yes, the 80's Peter Gabriel vibe to this song is intentional!
"What Beauty"
This is probably my favorite of the three. I felt like this one hit the spot lyrically in ways that I can't manufacture on call. I tried to model it after a hymn with lots of stanzas. Therefore it doesn't have a chorus. I've been messing around more with replacing minor chords with major and vice versa. This was the perfect opportunity to musically bring out some of the unsettling mystery that is in the lyrics.
"We Are Home"
We all know that the tradition of Christmas is rooted in the celebration of the birth of Jesus. However, so much has stemmed from that tradition. For example, the season of Christmas is associating with giving and the practice of valuing family. When I think of Christmas, not only do I think of a dreamy night scene 2,000 years ago, but I think of the present day, the sights, the smells, the sounds of Christmas. I think of being home.