TRADITIONAL CHRISTMAS CAROLS
If you are really familiar with this style, and are good at getting a song to sound really as if it were traditional, go for it! Many churches and civic groups are open, too, to using modern music written by locals for their Christmas pageants, so these are good places for you to try placing such tunes for good publicity, and this is also an excellent way for you to get your tunes noticed by industry types for later publishing. Do your research, though, and do a deep study of all the Bible verses on this subject—you really don’t want someone correcting you, later, if you happen to insert something that is really counter to established doctrine. If you want, try writing the story from perhaps a different point of view—“The Little Drummer Boy” did that very thing, and became very popular. Or look into older stories of good deeds done at Christmastime—“Good King Wenceslas,” for example. Several good children’s songs started as musical accompaniment for traditional stories, like Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol,” or “’Twas the Night Before Christmas.” Some of the stories you might like to write music to for a pageant may be registered material, though, so make sure you do a little research and do the paperwork and crediting where that is needed to avoid legal problems. You might also try a new arrangement of older tunes, but, again, make sure that you aren’t using copyrighted material, or that you get permission to use it, first. Since this kind of album is really popular with many artists, work out a good arrangement, or several, and you may be able to pitch these to artists next year in time for next Christmas. If nothing else, it is a good exercise in arranging tunes.
MODERN CHRISTMAS SONGS
This is becoming a more popular style of late. That tearjerker song about the pair of new shoes that was out last year got a lot of airplay. And, then, there are the ever-so-popular novelty numbers like “Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer,” Many people don’t realize that the whole Rudolph story started out as an ad campaign by the now defunct Montgomery Ward store chain, and will probably provide a source of income for those people for years to come. My first two song awards came from a humorous rap song my husband and I wrote to cheer up a friend whose home got burgled before Christmas one year. Try to think up a tune to spread a little good cheer or a warm fuzzy or two, and you may have a hit on your hands. Reach into your “personal treasure box” of experiences or things you have had others tell you, and try to come up with a really artistic way of expressing these to others. Do you or any of your friends have a great personal Christmas story to share? Can you put that to music? Or have you read one, somewhere? Can you get permission to use it? Or can you rewrite it and make it your own? Or can you just sit back and imagine the ideal Christmas scenario? What would it look, sound, smell, taste and feel like? Put that down in words and music, now. It may sound corny, but, in this case, I try to get myself into a great mood before shopping for or wrapping presents, and choose and wrap each with great care and love, trying to put myself in the recipients’ shoes and imagine how they might feel when opening it—I try to write my Christmas tunes the same way, as if it were a gift I were giving to my listeners—and I find that I do a better job when in this frame of mind. A little prayer first wouldn’t hurt, either….
