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All I Want for Christmas is My Son Back
The holidays are upon us … and how they churn up our emotions. The expectations … the memories … the empty chairs … Somewhere there’s the Norman Rockwell family celebrating, but it was never at my house. Was it at yours?A client and I have in common the ...
Christmas Time
As we ready ourselves to celebrate yet another Christmas to honor the birth of our Lord Jesus let us remember that this is a time to focus on the many blessings in our lives. Each day should be a day to focus on these things we hold dear that the Lord has ...
The Best Blue Christmas
It’s hard to believe that Christmas is just a few days away, isn’t it? Santa will soon be making his yearly run around the globe, delighting both children and adults alike. Christmas is the most magical holiday of them all, and it holds very deep and ...
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Music is often a subtle way of getting under the radar and evoking emotional responses from our subconscious. The commercial focus on Christmas seeks to convert these feelings into purchases - sometimes in crude direct appeals to consume but often in a more indirect atmospheric ways. While the committed Christians concentrate on re-telling the Christmas story through as many media as possible, including music - using the Advent season to recharge their spiritual batteries and encourage others to join them. Their tunes and some times even the words are often hijacked by those who wish to evoke a warm hearted relaxed atmosphere for the sale of their particular goods.
Much of this activity assumes a common Christian heritage and must strike those who do not share that background very oddly, not to mention the truly seasonal
issues for those in the Southern Hemisphere who celebrate Christmas in mid summer rather than the deep mid winter. There is also the rival celebration of New Year which is a predominantly secular affair with a very limited musical repertoire - mostly of Scottish origin for some reason and this eclipses Christmas in many countries. Christians adopted the pagan Winter Solstice celebrations as part of their missionary progress but those ties were loosened by the reformation and the French, American and Russian Revolutions amongst others.
The seasonal hit at Download2MP3.com is Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite with its Sugar Plum Fairy which fits neatly into the Victorian Christmas story telling context. While Debussy's Children's Corner with it's 'The Snow is Dancing' (Northern Hemisphere Christmas/Mid Winter associations) is another favourite and forms the backbone of our Children's Classics Collection which includes several of our shorter and lower priced recordings. Other beneficaiaries include our instrumental versions of the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel's Messiah and Gounod's Ave Maria
Recordings like these are an ideal way to personalize those iPod or MP3 player gifts for a few dollars more - perhaps introducing children to the classics in an accessible, amusing and memorable way.
About The Author
Tony Wiseman has been involved in music production using computers for more than 20 years and now publishes MP3 recordings of his original percussion arrangements of selected Classical and Ragtime pieces at Download2MP3.com.
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