Using Christmas Music in Guitar Lessons in Oklahoma
Hi, this is Andrea with Curtis Music Academy here with another wonderful podcast of the joy and the delight of playing music. So I am a piano teacher at Curtis Music Academy. We also offer guitar lessons in Oklahoma and vocal lessons in a variety of other instruments as well, such as ukulele or violin or saxophone. This podcast will focus on guitar lessons in Oklahoma. So today’s podcast will be on Christmas. And I just was wondering if there’s any listeners out there who have any strong connection with Christmas music and playing their instrument and any memories of playing songs around the piano during Christmas?
You know, the list could go on and on. And I just want to go through some of my great memories of Christmas time with music. And so one of the reasons why I do this is because it is September and I’m already starting to prepare some Christmas music for all my students. I’d love for them to have one or two Christmas songs that they could confidently play very easily during their piano or guitar lessons in Oklahoma. So I don’t want to make this a new challenge where it takes a long time to learn. Of course, there’s a place for that. But for Christmas, I want to make it a little bit below their difficulty level so they can just kind of play through it with their families and have some fun as well.
So one of my favorite Christmas memories, actually, when I was in 10th grade and we had a Christmas concert at the school I attended and I was the piano accompanist to the high school choir. So one of the funniest things was the video camera zoomed in on me and the sheet music that was in front of me playing the piano, it was like not turning the page or I was trying to turn the page and I wanted it to stay so I could read the sheet music, just like if you were using Christmas music in guitar lessons in Oklahoma. And I was trying to deal with the paper issue and playing the piano at the same time. It’s just this really funny scene. And another memory from that same night is we actually had a handbell choir, which was so fun. And so I don’t think anyone would understand how fun being in a handbell choir is unless you’ve actually been in one, because it’s like 18 or 19 people.
And all these bells, like think of every single note on the piano, it is a bell. And so the super high notes of the piano are little tiny bells and they increasingly get bigger and bigger and the bigger the more you go down the piano. So like the highest notes of the piano are like tiny bells, like you can literally fit four in your hand. And sometimes you know that the person who played those bells would do that. And sometimes I think for one song, she even fit six in her hand and was playing different ways and it was crazy. And so on the other side, it was the huge bells which were like the size of dinner plates.
Christmas Songs During Guitar Lessons in Oklahoma
Some of them weighed like 40 pounds. They’re heavy. So it had to be guys who played them. And I played kind of in the middle and it was just so fun. We had worked for several months on some Christmas songs for our Christmas concert with the handbells. We even played Sleigh Ride, and the conductor had even bought a wooden instrument that sounded like a whip. And so the guy who was playing the big bells got to play the whip sound as well, which was just like two wooden pieces that snapped together. And it makes it sound so it was just really fun. And we did a variety of Christmas songs that could be played in piano lessons and guitar lessons in Oklahoma.
And then we got up there with our choir, with our small and large ensembles, and we had ladies ensembles and small groups. It was just so fun. And Christmas songs like Oh Holy Night Carol of the Bells and Everything Traditional. And it was just a lot of fun. So I was just reminiscing of that. And my family was super involved in just all of those types of things. I think my sister had a solo that Year of O Holy Night and so just so many fun memories. And even beyond that, with Christmas songs like, you know, you just go home and you play Christmas songs on the piano and there’s hot chocolate, it’s snowing outside. It’s just really fun memories from before I took guitar lessons in Oklahoma.
So I know everyone has those types of memories as well. And so it might just be fun to reminisce on Christmas and what music plays a role in that as well- this could apply to piano as well as guitar lessons in Oklahoma. Another really fun memory I have involving music was from that same school where I went to and we actually had a bonus assignment from one of our classes to visit the downtown area of the city where we lived on one night in all of the big old traditional churches in that area would be putting on Christmas songs or different things like that or some sort of a night where they were open to the community. So there were Christmas carols. There’s all kinds of stuff. And so I remember me and a couple of friends wanted to get that bonus for our class.
And so we went and we had a great time and it was chilly and it was a night full of carols and the night downtown with all these big churches. And it just seemed like something that you would find in a movie. And it was really, really fun. So my question is, what’s the one way that you can make your Christmas more full with the music that you create? Maybe you would like to learn Christmas songs that you could play with your family. Maybe you would like to get the sheet music so that you could play and sing Christmas carols around the piano or guitar with the ones that you love as well. Maybe it’s to produce a Christmas album. So any of these would be amazing. Maybe it is to learn a Christmas song in guitar lessons, or to learn a new style of music during guitar lessons in Oklahoma.
And just to kind of get the ball rolling and to enjoy music during the holidays with your family, with those people that you love, and to start thinking early and a few months in advance of what kind of songs that you would like to do that with. And everyone has their own favorites of Christmas. And so that would be amazing. Thanks for joining us for this podcast about piano and guitar lessons in Oklahoma. We’ll see you next time for more information about guitar lessons.