"Carol of the Bells," composed by Mykola Leontovych, is based on a Ukrainian folk chant called "Shchedryk," and wasn't originally a Christmas song.

In pre-Christian Ukraine, the chant was performed in the new year, which was in April, and tells a tale of a bird that comes to a family to tell them about the plentiful year they will have.

But with the introduction of Christianity and a change to the Julian calendar, the new year moved to January and the holiday in which the chant was used became the Feast of Epiphany. The chant is now performed on New Year's Eve.

In the Western world, Leontovych's composition was introduced at Carnegie Hall in 1921, and in 1930, Peter Wilhousky wrote English lyrics to accompany the song. Since then "Carol of the Bells" has been performed at Christmastime.

Hark! how the bells
Sweet silver bells
All seem to say,
"Throw cares away."
Christmas is here
Bringing good cheer
To young and old
Meek and the bold

Ding, dong, ding, dong
That is their song
With joyful ring
All caroling
One seems to hear
Words of good cheer
From ev'rywhere
Filling the air

Oh how they pound,
Raising the sound,
O'er hill and dale,
Telling their tale,
Gaily they ring
While people sing
Songs of good cheer
Christmas is here
Merry, merry, merry, merry Christmas
Merry, merry, merry, merry Christmas

On, on they send
On without end
Their joyful tone
To ev'ry home

Carol Of The Bells

FeelTheBurningLight

Beginning as a modular synth jam recorded directly to tape, this track eventually gained acoustic guitars,  shortwave radio, hand percussion and a pocket piano with a dying battery.  

Drifting On Rails

Drums and synth-bass: Stylophone Beat groovebox
Bass guitar: Squier P-Bass Special
Lead synth: Behringer JT-4000 played from Artinoise re.corder
Strings: Behringer Solina
Sax: Gear4Music alto.

Sunrunner

I find that 'Gloucestershire Wassail' perfectly captures many of the elements of the Christmas season; the feelings of excitement and joy, the time to gather as family and friends to celebrate the joyous event that is the birth of Jesus Christ.

The English custom of “wassailing,” or visiting the leading households in the village on Christmas Eve with a decorated wooden bowl, and singing a wassailing song, apparently began in early 19th Century England. (The “wassail” custom actually has a much earlier origin, but doing it at Christmastime began in the 1800s.) Different villages in Gloucestershire used different tunes with various different lyrics. However, the most well-known version (the one we hear today) was popularized by Ralph Vaughn Williams in 1928. He used the tune from the version popular in Pembroke, Hertfordshire, and gathered the lyrics from William Bayless and Isaac Bennett, both residents of Gloucestershire. There are many variations to the lyrics, and traditionally there are ten verses. Here are the first four:

Wassail! wassail! all over the town,
Our toast it is white and our ale it is brown;
Our bowl it is made of the white maple tree;
With the wassailing bowl, we'll drink to thee.

Here's to our horse, and to his right ear,
God send our master a happy new year:
A happy new year as e'er he did see,
With my wassailing bowl I drink to thee.

So here is to Cherry and to his right cheek
Pray God send our master a good piece of beef
And a good piece of beef that may we all see
With the wassailing bowl, we'll drink to thee.

Here's to our mare, and to her right eye,
God send our mistress a good Christmas pie;
A good Christmas pie as e'er I did see,
With my wassailing bowl I drink to thee.

This year’s song is my take on this traditional English carol, inspired by the joy and energy of original, with a modern-day electronic twist.

Gloucestershire Wassail

Dave Liebman Clinic IAJE 2004 Recording produced by Zach Schwartz / On Site Recording Productions

An Overview Of A Chromatic Approach To Melody Harmony - Dave Liebman.MP3

Ribbon controllers are great except for jumping to discrete pitches accurately.  But what if you...

Trill Ribbon

Continuum Improv 03

Just goofing off with the Grendel Formant filter controlled by an X/Y Pad.  No voice was involved, just filter modulation.  

Formants

My first try exploring possibilities with this module.  Love it.  Some is manual knob changes and some is the in-module LFO.  

Doepfer A-127 VC Resonance Filter shaping a Monotribe

The base of this patch is the PWM square from an Intellijel Dixie which is what you hear "dry" at the start of this track. The square was the fed into the left input of the Azimuth. The pan and width of the Azimuth was being modulated at audio-rates by the second and third oscialltor oscillators of a WMD PDO, respectively. The PDO was being modulated by both itself and an a Synth Tech e350 Morphing Terrarium, mixed by the Triple Bi-Polar VCA PDO expander. Each of these elements was being modulated by an array of LFOs, such as the Intellelijel Quadra and Make Noise Maths. Roughly speaking, I just dialled in each of these elements one by one.  And that's it, no filters or processing bar a bit of Cwejman VC-FC compression at the end of the signal path... Enjoy!

Doepfer A-127 VC Resonance Filter shaping a Monotribe

Mark C Steiner