Christmas Songs

[Anonymous]

Thank you Sir. This is great. Maybe as I get going with them, is there a possibility of doing a lesson or two on them.???

[john]

yes of course.

[Anonymous]

Cool. I will work diligently on them and let you know, vinny

[Anonymous]

Sir, on white Christmas, towards the end of the melody, are you playing the song an octave up???? It sounds awesome, These songs will be a challenge for me but I am committed to getting these done well. I would think u are playing an octave up, if you are, where do u start ??????. Vinny

[john]

yes it goes up the octave. you start on the same note as written except you play an octave higher. you can play any part up there, or jump back down if it gets too high for you…there are no rules, just experiment and play what sounds good to you and how well you can control those high notes (it goes all the way to F# at one point). Just practice it as written untill you are really comfortable with it, it is only quarter notes and half notes so it’s very basic for ready. later you can add some embelishments and go up the octave like I did.

[Anonymous]

Thanks so much for that information. Thats excellent

[Dazza]

Hey Johnny, Ive been playing White Xmas and just about ready to upload for others to critique after I master the high E in the 4th last bar and perfect some of my own embellishments but I have a question. I have watched your version many times but cant fathom at 2:21 you do a gliss down from up high on an A but I cant see your fingers touch the G or G# keys and they look to hover above as you slide down. Is this true or even possible or just a trick of the camera.

[john]

yes, bit of a trick to those glissandos…
to play them you need to practice the chromatic scales, but in reality I will almost never actually include all the notes. you don’t have to, just as long as you get most of them. if you were to play every chromatic note along the way it would sound like a really fast chromatic scale an that’s not what a gliss should sound like. hope it makes sense!

[Michael]

When I was working on the Watermelon Man and having to come down chromatically from High D to low Bb, I wanted to try and hit every single key LOL It was counter-productive and slowed be down big time. When I uploaded it; I still missed a couple of the keys that I wanted to hit like the low Eb just because I think it adds a cool little riff to come from E to Eb while doing a fall off. I ended up hitting about 85% of the keys. I think Johnny mentions in his video about Glissandos that about 90% is good? Right now I’m working on “Night Train” and a Glissando is simply a must like Johnny explains here in his video–so the Watermelon Man was good “stepping stone” for me

[Dazza]

Hey mate. I get that the g# might be avoidable but my thought was that you couldnt play an f, e, or d unless the g key was down.

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