Christmas Carols Nobody Asked For, Vol. 3: Sweet Silent Tree

(For an explanation – of sorts – see Vol. 1. For more nonsense, see Vol. 2.)

Volume 1 was an attempt at a standard major-key pop-ish Christmas tune. Volume 2 was an attempt at a Christmas carol in the English folk style.

Volume 2 taught me a lot about lyrics. Like how if you’re going to have one syllable per note, maybe don’t have 24,601 eighth notes in your 28 measures of 6/8.

So in Volume 3, I took my inspiration from two sources:

1. Canons and rounds. I hate That One Pachelbel Canon with a passion, even with the Christmas lyrics shoehorned in. But that doesn’t mean I can’t attempt to make something similar.
2. Descants. How many notes can you sing in one breath? LET’S FIND OUT.

This is the result.

Sweet Silent Tree

Sweet silent tree
such joy and glee
o whoa
christmas bells rings
why do you
bring us pudding
bring lots of pudding
girl stay close

Here’s the sheet music (pdf)

Here’s the audio file (mp3)

After I wrote the melody line to go with the words, I decided to see if it actually worked as a round. The result is…eerily beautiful.

Here’s the sheet music for the round (pdf)

Here’s the audio file of the round (mp3)

Musicians are overworked and underpaid. Help keep me going: Share this post and/or drop me a tip.