Christmas Fragments - Three Fragments of Christmas Carols

Hi All, first submission here albeit a unserious, light-hearted one (and a rushed one too).

I wrote three variations on Christmas carols and named them fragments cause I didn't have the time and motivation to apply the whole ideas onto the whole carols (plus that could get boring). Instead I composed part of it as an 'aha' moment while exploring how melodies fit so perfectly to existing melodies.

Christmas Couple - I have always unironically think joy to the world fits more to The Marriage of Figaro overture, so here it is.

Christmas Cadenza - Well self evident (?), the rhythm fits so well even though not the same key. Recording is by musescore so the trills are kinda noisy lol

Christmas Counterpoint - Basically a quodlibet, with bad counterpoint. I'm still learning counterpoint (especially tonal or more than two voices) so I put together melodies of carols / pop songs as many as I can (I counted 11) while maintaining some harmony and try not to violate basic counterpoint principles I've learnt (which I'm sure I violated a few). The result seems like a mess but hey at least I had a blast writing it.

Hope y'all will have a laugh! 

Cheery, festive, and effective!

My favourite is the cadenza - I do think it could be a bit more complex in terms of piano writing but that's just my opinion.

These would make great light performance or encore pieces for the festive season! Thanks so much for sharing them, and welcome to the forum!

Hi @pool,

Welcome to the forum!

For the first one it reminds me of the wedding march too! For the 2nd one I am sure you take inspiration from the cadenza of Beethoven's 3rd Piano Concerto right haha!!! It's quite creative to link the carol with the cadenza! For the 3rd one maybe there are moments of 10th interval which will be hard to play, and some of the harmonies can be smoother like in b.1! There are also some parallel octaves like in b.66 between S and T and other places and make sure to cancel them out if you want to write a traditional 5 part writing!

Thx for joining and sharing your music to us!

Henry

@Henry Ng Tsz Kiu @aMusicComposer Thanks for both of your reviews! Yeah I didn't make the cadenza part complicated since to me it was just slapping the trill and melody together, the spin comes from the Beethoven 3 cadenza linking to carol (and honestly I'm not sure how to make it more complex within the deadline).

I did play the Quodlibet and indeed find some tenths a bit hard to play, although manageable. Thanks for point out the parallel octaves! I wonder why you said it's a 5 part though - I intended it as a 4 part. 

8 hours ago, pool said:

I wonder why you said it's a 5 part though - I intended it as a 4 part. 

Becoz I type wrongly LoL!!😛

On 12/24/2023 at 9:26 AM, pool said:

The result seems like a mess but hey at least I had a blast writing it.

This actually makes me really happy to hear. There's no point in doing all of these composition shenanigans we all love if it's no fun. Plus, even if you don't find something you wrote too successful, you'll find courage to keep moving forward with the comfort in knowing you're always getting better. 

I enjoyed the music, but man, those trills in second part were killer. There's got to be a way to make them softer to let your music shine... maybe there's some place online that harbors composers like yourself in a community that potentially and freely could offer advice. Oh wait, that's here!

Don't be afraid to ask questions here; I've come to know many talented artists and composers on YC, and you'll almost always hear from someone who would be happy to help you out. 

Great work, and thanks for sharing 🙂