Nobody? Yeah, I figured. Truth be told I never really got into Christmas caroling. It's one of those activities that's more fun in theory (where you're imagining being accompanied by professional singers) than in execution (a group of friends who don't actually KNOW the carols improvisationally performing for people who truly don't want to be bothered -sorry again Woolco).
The real soul of Christmas is in the choirs. A Capella, bell, jazz, Finnish shouting; it doesn't matter. Moderate talent can really pull together some impressive performances under the fist of a prima donna dictator in the name of peace and harmony.
So let's say you're thinking about starting yourself a little singing group. Good for you. That's so cute. I myself am thinking about becoming a professional actor/writer/model/rockstar. Here's to both our dreams. But where do you start when devising your choir's set list? I mean, there are literally 69,105 Christmas carols to choose from.
Well, there's a few solid staples. Silent Night and Deck the Halls are easy ones. Everybody knows the words, the ranges are simple, you really can't screw those up (although Ray Charles admittedly arranged a version of Jingle Bells that still gives me a migraine). Then you have some choices of standard fare like Away in a Manger or Winter Wonderland, which people know really well but may not be familiar with the vastly superior additional verses. And then there's those really boring ones like Still, Still, Still or the Holly and the Ivy, that audiences have learned to tolerate.
But there's a few subtle pitfalls about very specific Christmas carols that you may not be aware of until you're in full view of the House of the Lord's congregation; a place surprisingly conducive to pondering those elements of your life that really tap into your never-ending cycle of grief.
You know? In the spirit of Christmas, why don't I point a few of those out for the sake of all humankind.
1. The First Noel
The problem: Hearing loss.
Actually, fun anecdote. At the age of six, I once burst into this song on my own accord (I think it may have been at a University library) and sang the hell out of it. I made it all the way to the 'Noel' part before realizing I'd been singing the melody to The Star Spangled Banner by mistake. I'm sure that's happened to everyone at some point, but that's not the issue I want to address.
Several of the carols on this list are going to relate to untimely high notes, and this is a perfect initial example. The fourth Noel has a descant, which is a musical term for "the sopranos get to do something cool while the rest of us are stuck with these monotone harmony lines". Now I can't print music in this blog, but essentially the descant reads like this:
No-o-e-el. No-o-eeeeel. No-o-e-el. No-o-EEEEEEEEEEEE-el.
Composers favor sopranos, and sopranos know they're great. And because Christmas is a time for humility or some crap like that, sopranos get a little repressed. That descant bursts the dam they've been obligated to build up, and you don't want your ears directly in front of them when that happens.
2. Hark the Herald Angels Sing
The problem: fainting.
The Noel descant is a perfect showoff bit because it's high, loud, and short. Hark the Herald Angels Sing starts out in a reasonably high range. Then it gets higher. And it stays there...until it goes HIGHER and stays there. And then we do the next three verses the same way.
I'm a tenor, so I'm not afraid of high notes. But this hymn is a pounding elephant stampede of the same damn note over and over. It's like headbanging to an Offspring song eight feet underwater. You can actually feel your heart going "What the hell is going on up there? Your blood is coming back purple!"
If you're going to pick this one for your choir, let them do it right out of the gate and then schedule in a twenty-five minute intermission for recovery. Better yet, let's turn it over to a diva soloist.
3. O Holy Night
The problem: oversinging.
In my opinion, this is one of the most beautiful sacred Christmas songs out there. I'm sure everyone owns the Trans-Siberian Orchestra's first Christmas album where that guitar plays the most hauntingly painful version of this song on the second track.
In a way, this one is like Hark the Herald in the sense that it starts high and keeps getting higher, but it's much more voice-friendly in terms of giving breath marks and reeling it in. Still though, it's a tough piece to sing, but a lot of people can do it.
And therein lies the problem. Someone with a strong enough voice easily fall victim to the misguided belief that the song is somehow about them. Jessica Simpson is probably the highest profile singer to ever prove she had no idea what the lyrics were about on national television. O Holy Night is about something bigger than you, and you look very foolish if you present it as "[Everybody but me] Fall on your knees."
On the flipside, you also look pretty stupid undersinging it, so the challenge is finding the sweet spot. As my elementary school choir teacher put it "This is fall on your knees, not fall on your nose."
4. It Came Upon a Midnight Clear
The problem: the wrong sentiment
I'm sure you've heard of this song, but unless you regularly spend your Decembers in churches you might not be familiar with how it goes. Here's what you need to know.
First off, this song is really pretty. Secondly, it follows standard four-line hymn format; line one is your primary melody without resolution, followed by line two which is the same melody except with resolution. Line three is a counter melody line and line four is a repeat of line two. It's line three where the problem arises.
The first half of line three is "Peace on the earth, goodwill to men". "Peace on" is a repeated high note, not a stratosphere one, but notably the highest the melody goes into. "The earth" immediately follows, and it's the same note, but an octave lower.
Dropping an octave is a bit of a trick for the human voice unless you're going through puberty. So if you're singing this carol, your natural focus is on not slurring that low note while searching for it. As such, it's easy to cut a corner on the high stuff.
See, high notes take energy. And forming long vowels (like the 'e' in peace) also takes energy. And for whatever reason, if you're not concentrating that long 'e' sound can transform into a short 'i' sound like in igloo. I'll let you put that together yourself. Suffice to say, if there are middle schoolers in the congregation they're going to hear exactly what you don't want them to.
5. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
The problem: audience participation
I don't know where this started or why, but these dumb-ass responses to every other line in this song started rubbing me the wrong way as far back as third grade.
On the one hand, using "like a light-bulb" twice in a row is really lazy writing. On the other hand, grow up! It's not clever and it's not funny.
Although I sometimes wonder why this never caught on with other 'mythology' carols like Frosty the Snowman. "For when they placed it on his head, he began to dance around. Like an idiot!"
6. We Wish You a Merry Christmas
The problem: despair
This carol was voted most-likely-to-grate-on-your-nerves nine years in a row in the Christmas poll I just made up. The song is the epitome of everything wrong with the world today. It's the Tom's Diner of Christmas music.
I know what you're thinking (and shame on you for thinking that), but what you should be thinking is "How bitter and grouchy do you have to be to get this worked up about such a harmless Happy Birthday-esc commercial jingle?" The answer is twofold. First, shut up. Second, We Wish You a Merry Christmas is the default sing-tone of all carolers. When you're wandering en mass through the hospital or whatever and you bump into another patient you didn't know was there, it's "Let's sing something...uh...We wish you a merry-"
You only need that experience once to hate the song forever. And it doesn't help that there's always a couple of yokels who insist on singing it "We w'sssshhhh you a Merry Christmas" and looking pleased with themselves.
But the real soul crushing moment comes during the 'choose your own bridge' section, which goes in this sort of sequence: 1. "Good tidings" 2. "we bring/to you" 3. "to you and your kin/wherever you are/and a happy/oh come on guys". It's at that moment the whole song trails off, the carolers smile like morons and the hospital recipient casually indicates she really didn't give a shit about being sung to.
It's too much reality setting in. Christmas deserves better.
7. The Hallelujah Chorus
The problem: a fistfight in the parking lot
Technically The Hallelujah Chorus is an Easter tradition, but if churches are going to shell out the money for the brass section on Christmas Eve they're going to use them thoroughly.
Handel's Messiah is an inescapable piece of classical music. You simply can't not know of it. In fact, even if you never set foot in a church in your life you could probably sing the primary melody line from start to finish without error. That's how 'everywhere' the piece is.
And the funny thing is, if YOU can do that (and again, I'm having to pretend you're a tone deaf Godless heathen to make this analogy work. Sorry about that, you devout virtuoso harpy you) you'd think people who regularly sing in the choir loft would be able to hit all their marks with their eyes closed. You'd really think that.
There are two things you can guarantee in a church; when the preacher says "and then this last thing" the sermon still has at least another seven minutes to go, and when a choir performs The Hallelujah Chorus SOMEBODY is going to botch the ending with a half-syllable solo.
This, verbatim, is the finale of every Hallelujah Chorus ever performed in a church:
Choir: Hallelujah!...Hallelujah!...Hallelujah!...Hallelujah!
(pause)
Soloist: (meekly) Hah-
Lead Alto: (softly) Are you f**king kidding me.
Choir: Haaa-Leeeeeeee-Luuuuuuuuuu-Jaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh!
And the congregation applauds even though they're not supposed to in a church service, but it gives the choir director a chance to bail out knowing that somebody's going to get it.
And that, dear friends, is the price of peace on earth.
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