Holiday Music Favorites IV (2009)

This is turning out to be a fairly productive year for new Holiday Music arrangements. It would appear that working in the Guitar/Bass/Drums format has been helpful in terms of coming up with ideas.

This is “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” , written by Hugh Martin & Ralph Blane. It is from the 1944 movie Meet Me in St.Louis, in which the song is performed by Judy Garland.

I was going for a little bit of a Desi Arnaz thing here. The guitar is my L-4CES.

Stream

MP3

Holiday Music Favorites III (2009)

This is another all-new arrangement, Hark the Herald Angels Sing.  The arrangement is — as usual nowadays — for guitar, bass and drums. On this recording the guitar is again the 1949 L-4C about which I recently posted on the blog.

Here are the links to listen:

Stream

MP3

Holiday Music Favorites II (2009)

This is an all-new arrangement. I’ve never actually done Jingle Bells before, although it might well be the most arranged of all holiday songs. It’s one of the simpler seasonal tunes, and it’s pretty easy to overwhelm it with harmony substitutions. It seems to me that I’ve seen and heard more arrangements that I considered to be poor than to be good.

Given that it has been arranged so many ways, it wasn’t until the idea for this approach developed that I thought I might have something at least a little bit original — and that also preserves the traditional happy-go-lucky  mood that I think most people associate with the song. Perhaps you can tell me how well the arrangement works.

The arrangement is — as usual nowadays — for guitar, bass and drums. On this recording the guitar is the 1949 L-4C about which I recently posted on the blog.

Here are the links to listen:

Stream

MP3

Holiday Music Favorites (2009)

Yes, I realize that as I post this it is a bit on the early side. However, at least I did wait until after Halloween. I can blame the timing on my wife C., who is a piano teacher and begins working on holiday music with her students once November rolls around. In order for her to be ready, she typically orders new Christmas arrangements over the summer and reviews them in September and October. So the holiday music season starts pretty early around our house.