#146 – ICYMI: Versatile Christmas Music

Hello, teacher friends! It feels totally cliche to say this but holy cow, my husband and I were just talking about how shocked we are that this week will mark the middle of November. I don’t know why I’m still surprised when life feels like it goes by in the blink of an eye, but I’ll still go with my dramatic shocked feeling anyway. LOL

Along those same lines, we just stepped into the home stretch of the last 5 episodes of this podcast for 2024, blasting our way up to the whopping #150. This year, Christmas and New Years land on Tuesdays so it works perfectly that we will hit episode #150 the second Tuesday of December. I’ll have a much-needed break after 3 years of weekly episodes and will return in late January.

A big thanks to all my teacher friends on Patreon who continue to cheer this podcast along including my good friend Janna Williamson. We didn’t get started with Patreon until halfway into this stretch of the podcast – I think it was around epsidoe #85 – but I’m so grateful for those of you who have stepped up to cheer on this work.

The recording of last week’s Patreon session called Connect and Engage: Professional Resources for the Independent Music Teacher is now available. You can access that along with other bonus content by joining as an Insider for just $7 and can cancel at any time. Visit PianoPantry.com/patreon to join today or just look up Piano Pantry on Patreon directly.

Now onto today’s show.

Today’s episode is the 5th and final ICYMI episode of 2024. These “In Case You Missed It” episodes have been a fun little twist to throw into this past year’s episode mix. The other four ICYMI epsiodes include #114 on the Music Teacher National Association’s Music Study Award Program, #126 on a stuffed animal shopping guide to accompany the Piano Safari Method, #133 on the huge collection of printable assignment sheets available on the Piano Pantry website, and #139 on the huge collection of support videos including theory, expressive movement, holiday-themed and more available on the Piano Pantry website. All of these, along with anything mentioned in this episode will be available in the show notes at PianoPantry.com/podcast/episode146

As we come up on the biggest holiday of the year, I would be remiss if I didn’t make today’s ICYMI episode feature the most flexible Christmas Book you’ll ever get your hands on. This is one of those instances where I couldn’t find anything out there that was useful for how I wanted to teach so I created my own.

It’s called Christmas By Ear. This resource is designed so you can use it in a variety of ways with a variety of students at a variety of levels. Use it for playing entirely by ear, for singing and accompanying using chords with various accompaniment patterns, or play with lead sheets.

I intentionally included only eight well-known pieces that mostly used only primary chords in major and minor tonality.

Each tune has three dedicated pages. A song info sheet, a chord chart, and a lead sheet. The first two pages are the biggest reasons I wanted a resource like this for myself and I think you’ll enjoy it as well.

The first page is a song info sheet which is meant to help guide the student through considering what we hear in the piece. Teaching tips in the appendix will help you as the teacher through the process such as labeling the piece in duple or triple, listening for and singing the resting tone, comparing the resting tone to the starting tone, and more. The song info sheet also includes a fun fact about the piece itself.

The second page is in the style of a chord chart and while it includes multiple verses that can be used for sing-alongs, the chords are only written in for one verse and the chorus. It is different than other chord charts out there in that I wanted chord charts that didn’t just have chord names written in for students. The charts use functional chord symbols printed in light grey, so you and the student together can determine what key you would like to play it in and then fill in the chord names.

Because this is a studio-licensed product, you can reprint the pages as much as you like and try it in more than one key.

A small tracking area at the bottom of the chord chart page gives you a place to track the different accompanying patterns students have mastered with each piece, which means this resource can be used for more than one year of study. Each year they can try a little more challenging pattern and even play it in a little harder key.

You might be wondering if this is the only Christmas music my students play. Oh definitely not! Yes, I still use arranged pieces of Christmas music. Some of it depends on age as well. Right now most of my students are at the intermediate level. I ask them what one piece they absolutely want to play for Christmas and then I find a nice arrangement for them. They each do no more than 1-2 special arrangements. Beyond that, we go straight to the Christmas By Ear book.

For my beginners, I try to avoid asking what one piece they want to play and I just make sure we play a little bit of Jingle Bells or Jolly Old St. Nicholas and they’re usually totally happy. Otherwise, for my beginners I stick to this book.

For example, with my early elementary students, we might just play the chord root while singing the tune. (sign example) The next year, we might learn to play the melody in the RH while playing that same chord root in the LH. The next year, we might play close position chords in the RH and root octaves in the LH while using legato pedal. The next year we might expand to a fuller LH accompaniment pattern like root – 5th-octave-2-3 (sing example) as it moves up the piano with a very flowing pattern. The possibilities are endless!

I also like encouraging students to come up with a short introduction – sometimes it’s even just rolling the dominant chord or even a little ending to close the tune out.

Teaching students to play chords while people sing along is definitely something I like to encourage. Your can hear more about that in episode #91 Equip Your Students for Holiday Singalongs.

For my early beginners. I don’t like just giving them an arrangement but like I said, most are happy with the melody of Jingle bells or Jolly Old St. Nicholas. If you’re interested in learning more, go back and listen to episode #046 on teaching Jingle Bells By Ear.

I also have a free download for you today. It’s a visual quick sheet for helping students play Jolly Old St. Nicolas by Ear without notation. It shows them where to place their hands, what the rhythm pattern is and the order in which they play – A part, then the B part then back to the A part then back to the B part but a little different B part since it’s the ending and it’s finishing and not continuing. (Sing through it for example.)

The rhythm patterns on the quick sheet use Gordon’s rhythm syllables so it just shows 4 big heart beats and example patterns. So it doesn’t show actual rhythm notation. It also includes for teacher reference the key tonal patterns from when we sing the melody. (Sing through it for example.) This isn’t something you nave to do but if you are comfortable with it, it is there as a reference for you as a teacher.

Visit the show notes to get the link for this download. You’ll also find the link for Christmas By Ear: 8 Tunes to Harmonize in the show notes as well. You’ll find it just as easily if you Google Piano Pantry Christmas book.

Save the date for after the holidays as Joy Morin and I will be running the 3rd round of our Organize Your Life with Notion workshop January 10, 17, and 24. Those are Friday afternoons 3 weeks in a row from 1:00-3:00pm Eastern Time. Since the podcast will be on a break, make sure you’re on our waitlist for notification. Visit PianoPantry.com/notionwait

I’ll also be running the winter session of the online digital organization coaching series on Fridays from January 31 – March 7 from 1:00pm-2:30pm Eastern Time. Join the waitlist for that at PianoPantry.com/getorganized

Thanks for being here, everyone, be sure and subscribe to the podcast and take a moment to rate and review. I’ll always look forward as always to connecting with you online on Facebook or on Instagram where You’ll find me @pianopantryamy