# Christmas Chimes (2 pianos/4 hands)



## Guy Bacos (Nov 7, 2010)

I took a few days in between VSL demos to write some holiday music. 

This is a potpourri of nearly all Christmas hymns which I arranged my own way. The piece is written for 2 pianos/4 hands

EDIT:The piece is now available on cdbaby for purchase, so I cannot upload here the full version, however this version, although only samples, is still long enough to give an idea.

Christmas Chimes

Comments are appreciated.

Guy


----------



## synergy543 (Nov 7, 2010)

Absolutely splendid performance and refreshing arrangements. 

What a delight to listen to!

Greg


----------



## nikolas (Nov 7, 2010)

This is your 'impressionistic' period, huh Guy? 

Wonderful arrangement... And the piano doesn't sound half bad (which is a first for me for the Imperial... I'm assuming it's that piano).

But really very nice. Extremely nice.


----------



## Guy Bacos (Nov 7, 2010)

Thanks Greg and Nikolas.

There is a setting I have been using lately which seems to give good results. 

I put a gain of 4-9 dB at 6K on the VSL equalizer, when your piece calls for it it can help brighten up the Vienna Imperial middle and some upper range (although in this piece, much of the upper brightness comes from piano 2 which is the older VSL Bosendorfer Imperial, piano 1 is vienna Imperial), add some exciter from the vienna suite (again to your taste). And for rev. what works well is Todd AO, 10M and about 5-10% of Berlin Hall 12M at the output. The piano setting used here is 'Player'. (There's one other thing I do, but that I keep to myself , but this is a big part of the sound right there)


----------



## RiffWraith (Nov 7, 2010)

Guy Bacos @ Mon Nov 08 said:


> The piece is written for 2 pianos/4 hands.



I double-dog dare you to write a piece for 4 pianos/2 hands.  

Very nice piece. Really like it form a compositional standpoint. I bit too bright for my taste, and it sounds a bit harsh, but that's just me. What's that phasing I hear on the Db @ :50?



> And for rev. what works well is Todd AO, 10M and about 5-10% of Berlin Hall 12M at the output.



Could you kindly explain more? What I am getting is that you added The T-AO diectly to the piano track(s), and the B-Hall on the op buss. But I may be misunderstanding.

Cheers.


----------



## impressions (Nov 8, 2010)

awesome work man, nice combo with the barok jazz combinations, and what i loved the most is that you kept the whole christmas vibe throughout the whole thing. fearsome.


----------



## paoling (Nov 8, 2010)

Very good, Guy!
This is a very very beautiful piece.

I really like the reharmonization of Silent Night, that for me it's one of the most beautiful songs ever written.

(what about "White Christmas"?


----------



## Guy Bacos (Nov 8, 2010)

Thanks Riffwraith, impression and Paoling!

Yes, Silent Night is maybe my favorite in this piece as well.

What about White Christmas?

Well this is the reason of the pieces I chose. First, I wanted to keep away from pieces that weren't public domain, I'm not sure about about "White Christmas", but the main reason is: I didn't want to chose pieces that have already fun melodies, such as "Sleigh Ride" or the pop crooner melodies like "The Christmas Song", which I love. I wanted to challenge myself with melodies that are church hymns and can get a little too marchy or boring sometimes and easily poorly performed. (This is with the exception of "Jingle Bells" I used)

Impression, glad you enjoyed the vibe. :D 

Riff, there are many possible mix routings but its the concept of using two different reverbs (one for early reflections and one for longer hall reverb) that is important, not a specific setup recipe.


----------



## paoling (Nov 8, 2010)

Well.. I see your motivations, but White Christmas is a little piece of art... That cromatic motif is terrific 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUbU5hD0rrM

But maybe you're right about Royalties.. I remember an old eastwest christmas competition and it wasn't included in the list of mockupable songs .

Congratulations again for your piece, Guy.


----------



## Guy Bacos (Nov 9, 2010)

Thanks guys, I truly appreciate your encouragements!  It is food for the soul.


----------



## michaelv (Nov 9, 2010)

Superbly realised: Beethoven would have been proud. I simply don't understand why this is not getting more reaction. Oh, well guess it's going over some peoples' heads: maybe you should consider putting an SD2 loop on it. I hear a Russian flavour to some of the dissonances, which really gives it that wintry feel.

One thing: is Greensleeves actually a Christmas piece? Never heard it in that context before.It still sounds great. Wonderful work, from a proper musician. Top class.


----------



## Guy Bacos (Nov 9, 2010)

Thanks Michael!

That's life I guess huh, Michael? Some people chose to comment and others not, for whatever reasons... 

I'm personally very happy about this work.

Regarding Greensleeves, in the Catholic church, it is a well known hymn called "What Child is This?" and sung every Christmas season along with the other traditional holiday hymns.


----------



## tumeninote (Nov 9, 2010)

This is really top notch work! I really enjoyed listening to this. Have a good day.


----------



## dcoscina (Nov 9, 2010)

Guy, I commented on your Facebook page but it's worth repeating how awesome this piece is on this forum. Your music communicates a real love for the craft and it's both enjoyable as well as nourishing to those who want to dig deeper. Some great use of harmonic variation that keeps the ears perked up. There were more than a few times I went "oh, nice changes!". The pure sentimentality of some of these pieces, treated with such care and finesse, is just great. 

I put this up with my Oscar Peterson Jazz Christmas CD for pure enjoyment and interpretation of x-mas classics. 

Well done!


----------



## dannthr (Nov 9, 2010)

Hah, nice job, this reminds me when Schroeder from Peanuts would play jingle bells on the piano for Lucy and she's like "No, I said JINGLE BELLS, you know ho, ho, ho and mistle toe and all that?! Now play it right!"


----------



## Windle (Nov 9, 2010)

This is a terrific piece of work - many congratulations - thoroughly enjoyed listening to it. 

I hope it gets out into the real world. I can imagine this would be a great seasonal finale for piano duos.

AK


----------



## mverta (Nov 10, 2010)

Yeah, Guy - it needs more staccato string ostinatos.

Anyway, as usual, it's more of the typical, dated-sounding stuff from you; by which I mean vastly more musical and craft-laden than 99% of what I hear these days. I've been a jò;¼   ï‡Í;¼   ï‡Î;½   ï‡Ï;½   ï‡Ð;½   ï‡Ñ;½   ï‡Ò;½   ï‡Ó;½   ï‡Ô;½   ï‡Õ;½   ï‡Ö;½   ï‡×;½   ï‡Ø;½   ï‡Ù;½   ï‡Ú;½   ï‡Û;½   ï‡Ü;½   ï‡Ý;½   ï‡Þ;½   ï‡ß;½   ï‡à;½   ï‡á;½   ï‡â;½   ï‡ã;½


----------



## Frederick Russ (Nov 10, 2010)

This is terrific Guy! Very nice realization. Great to hear you have the chops to do something like this.


----------



## michaelv (Nov 10, 2010)

Guy, I'm sure some of us are curious to know your process of composition. For instance, on something like this, do you notate it all first, or improvise and refine; or simply imrov. the whole thing? Going back to my Beethoven reference, I know that he didn't particularly enjoy the laborious part of setting his works in stone, and that he was a prolific improviser. I'd like to know how you put this together: or is it a trade secret? :wink:


----------



## Guy Bacos (Nov 10, 2010)

tumeninote @ Tue Nov 09 said:


> This is really top notch work! I really enjoyed listening to this. Have a good day.



Thanks, great to hear that!




dcoscina @ Tue Nov 09 said:


> Guy, I commented on your Facebook page but it's worth repeating how awesome this piece is on this forum. Your music communicates a real love for the craft and it's both enjoyable as well as nourishing to those who want to dig deeper. Some great use of harmonic variation that keeps the ears perked up. There were more than a few times I went "oh, nice changes!". The pure sentimentality of some of these pieces, treated with such care and finesse, is just great.
> 
> I put this up with my Oscar Peterson Jazz Christmas CD for pure enjoyment and interpretation of x-mas classics.
> 
> Well done!



Yes, you did comment on FB, and I can't tell you how much it means to me, your comments. I'm currently launching this piece on CDBaby, iTunes etc, of course I'll have to soon remove it from here. Your comment very much described my intentions,. Thanks! 



dannthr @ Tue Nov 09 said:


> Hah, nice job, this reminds me when Schroeder from Peanuts would play jingle bells on the piano for Lucy and she's like "No, I said JINGLE BELLS, you know ho, ho, ho and mistle toe and all that?! Now play it right!"



LOL Thanks!



Windle @ Tue Nov 09 said:


> This is a terrific piece of work - many congratulations - thoroughly enjoyed listening to it.
> 
> I hope it gets out into the real world. I can imagine this would be a great seasonal finale for piano duos.
> 
> AK



Thanks Windle! As I said to David, it's in the process. The fact that you enjoyed it is quite rewarding.




mverta @ Wed Nov 10 said:


> Yeah, Guy - it needs more staccato string ostinatos.
> 
> Anyway, as usual, it's more of the typical, dated-sounding stuff from you; by which I mean vastly more musical and craft-laden than 99% of what I hear these days. I've been a jazz pianist since I was 11, but I could do with a couple lessons from you. You're bolder below middle-C than I've ever dared to be, to my shame.
> 
> ...



Thanks Mike, I don't often hear from you, but when I do, I'll take it  About being a dated piece, one could take this the wrong way, but I know what you mean. 




Frederick Russ @ Wed Nov 10 said:


> This is terrific Guy! Very nice realization. Great to hear you have the chops to do something like this.



Thanks Frederick! I have some good chops, but a bit of editing helps.... :oops: 




michaelv @ Wed Nov 10 said:


> Guy, I'm sure some of us are curious to know your process of composition. For instance, on something like this, do you notate it all first, or improvise and refine; or simply imrov. the whole thing? Going back to my Beethoven reference, I know that he didn't particularly enjoy the laborious part of setting his works in stone, and that he was a prolific improviser. I'd like to know how you put this together: or is it a trade secret? :wink:



Ah yes, going back to your Beethoven reference, sorry I usually skip your posts Michael. :wink:

I had a lot of fun writing this piece, I really felt like a child at times. I specifically wanted to write a piece for 4 hands, whether it was for 1 or 2 pianos. I remember hearing the Nutcracker in a 4 hand version, and it was so lovely, it had a different kind of charm than the orchestral version.

The basis of each melody was the harmonic structure, mainly for the first half of the piece. In the 2nd half my goal was to not repeat myself and look for contrasting accompaniments. I'd start from scratch each melody, improvise on the piano looking for a certain type of sonority, which I guess is in between jazz and impressionistic, mostly based on smooth clusters, of course, poly-harmony was an important technique here. Once one part and passage started to take shape, the 2nd piano part quickly came to me, it was quite effortless because one part always called for the other, at least the way I heard it in my mind. 

As for the performance, it was a bit experimental. If I play it live, this is how I would play it, but to record the 2 pianos could of been quite complicated. For each melody, I had a good idea of how I would perform it, including slowing down, pauses etc So I tried something with the first one, Jingle Bells, I played it straight with the metronome and than the 2nd piano straight as well, and since I new quite precisely how I would interpret it, I just recreated my interpretation through tempo automation. I thought the first one was convincing enough, so I did the whole piece like that. If you listen to silent night, one of the pianos plays frequently 10 note figures in the time of 3 beats, I could imagine the awkwardness of trying to record this without a metronome reference.

Regarding notation, none of it is notated, improvised as I went along. If sales are good, or there are demands for performance (although getting late for this year), I'd take some time to notate it.


----------



## germancomponist (Nov 10, 2010)

Huh, I thought I wrote here my compliment, Guy, but I did it on facebook. 

Again, I like your "own way" how cool you arranged this piece. Very great!


----------



## sherief83 (Nov 11, 2010)

Once again, very impressive. You certainly went out on this one and I kept being surprised with your techniques. Mike pointed out how well you used the low registers, that was awesome! thanks for sharing it, I seriously hope that this specific work will find its way to be heard by many people, the least you could do is transcribe it if you haven't already and offer it for publishing and performance, this is terrific work!


----------



## Guy Bacos (Nov 14, 2010)

Thanks Jay!


----------



## OB.one (Nov 14, 2010)

Bonsoir Master Guy

Really enjoyed hearing this new piece !

Always have pleasure to discover your science of harmony in every of your pieces, always something fresh and new.

Now you should find a partner to play live this piece ! ... between your Concerto for Cello and your Harp concerto ... 

:wink: 

Best Regards from Paris

Olivier
http://www.myspace.com/obonemusic


----------



## Musicologo (Nov 15, 2010)

Hey, I liked this a lot! I love solo piano compositions, and double piano is also good. 

I guess you played a lot with the themes. It's very refreshing to see those new arrangments. And I love impressionism. 

The only thing I was not too kind of was those trills, too many trills for my taste and too few glissandi and arpegios. I would prefer more variety on the ornaments. 

It was also good to learn your set up of piano sounds. I'm still learning how to record things after notate and perform them!! :D


----------



## Guy Bacos (Nov 15, 2010)

Merci Olivier et je salue Paris!

Thanks Misicologo!




Musicologo @ Mon Nov 15 said:


> The only thing I was not too kind of was those trills, too many trills for my taste and too few glissandi and arpegios. I would prefer more variety on the ornaments.



My goal was to keep the piece in a constant feel of carillon, bells, chimes etc. Arpeggios tended to bring it back to the more traditional piano style, which is why I avoided it, along with the fact it didn't reminisce bells very well. Gliss. perhaps


----------



## Guy Bacos (Dec 23, 2010)

I posted this piece so early on, I thought might as well bring it back during the appropriate time. Hope that doesn't bother anyone. And at the same time wish happy holidays to everyone! o-[][]-o


----------

