As merchandisers will tell you, there are only 32 shopping days left before Christmas.
Any musician will tell you that right after Halloween, we have mere weeks before we are up to our eyeballs with Christmas concerts and party gigs. I'm currently working my Christmas gig repertoire back under my fingers, along with some of the songs from Conservatory Canada's Contemporary Idioms syllabus. Well, I'm finding that it's one thing to stay a couple of pages ahead of my students. It's a complete other story getting their songs up to performance standard.
In the end, some of the new songs won't make the cut this season. They'll be replaced with old standbys with a twist. For instance, I've discovered that God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen sounds very nice with a Latin pattern or a Boogie Woogie pattern and that Blue Christmas sounds neat with a Honky Tonk bass.
Be brave. Next time you practice your holiday music, add some zip to your songs by changing it a bit. You'll find it entertaining and quite enjoyable.
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