SongTrellis
Music and Musical Know-how For You

Author:  David Luebbert Posted:  12/8/07; 1:04:00 AM Topic:  Christmas Time Is Here Msg#:  5369 (in response to 5368) Prev/Next:  5368/5370 Reads:  1512

Chinh,

The score that is published shows one complete 32 measure chorus of the chord accompaniment for the tune. The chord accompaniment that is recorded for the site in MIDI format repeats this sequence of chords over and over until the performance ends. Each chorus in that accompaniment after the first chorus varies the voicings of the chords played the first time.

In performance you could perform the chord voicings that are used in the published score over and over if they sound good to you, although your listeners may get bored hearing the single chorus arrangement repeated this way.

The chord voicings that were used in this performance were generated by a copy of the SongTrellis Music Editor which calculates the voicings using a built in chord voicing algorithm. The algorithm that is used invokes a random process constrained by voicing rules which generates a different set of chord voicings for a score each time it played.

Since there were eight or ten choruses in the score that I used to generate this arrangement, each chorus in it is voiced differently.

There is an easy way to produce new scores for yourself that vary the arrangement, if you decide you need that.

You can follow the SongTrellis Excerpt Sevice link that appears on the Christmas Time Is Here page, and use this to generate new arrangements of the tune's chord sequence. The Excerpt Service page communicates with a copy of the SongTrellis Editor which runs on the server to create new arrangements at user request.

If you open that page, change the Last Bar setting to 32, since the tune's chord progression is 32 bars long, and press the Play button, the server will generate a new single chorus performance of the tune for you in a second or two.

If the generated MIDI file sounds good to you, you can save that MIDI sequence plus the matching printable score in JPG format to your computer.

The chord voicing algorithm that we use may occasionally produce an arrangement that sounds clumsy to you in some respect or another. If you don't like the results of your previous Play attempt, press the "Play" button again and the arrangement will be varied for you again, hopefully producing something that you will find is musically more valuable to you.

Once you've accumulated music for 3 or 4 different choruses of the tune, you most likely will have enough music on hand so that you can do a varied performance for your audience at church.

• Re: Christmas Time Is Here, Chinh Tran, 12/16/07; 1:19:53 AM

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