As in past years, I devoted an hour of my weekly two-hour rehearsal this week to a guided listening. For an hour, we listen to different interpretations of the same Christmas classic. It enables us to focus on tone, interpretation, creativity, and any number of other factors.
Here are 2014 (Silent Night), 2015 (The Christmas Song), and 2016 (Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas).
I try to curate an order that spurs comparison, and walks a balance between more traditional and more expansive versions. As always, I like to talk about active listening, and try to guide the discussion towards meaningful specifics rather than wandering generalities.
This year we listened to a number of versions of Jingle Bells, the classic 19th century carol written by James Pierpont. Here the versions we listened to:
- The King’s Singers [iTunes] [Amazon]
- m-pact [iTunes] [Amazon]
- The Swingle Singers [iTunes] [Amazon]
- James Taylor [iTunes] [Amazon]
- The Manhattan Transfer [iTunes] [Amazon]
- Straight No Chaser [iTunes] [Amazon]
- Bing Crosby & The Andrews Sisters [iTunes] [Amazon]
Here’s a Spotify playlist, as well.
And here are a few more we didn’t have time to play:
- Chanticleer [iTunes] [Amazon]
- The Real Group [iTunes] [Amazon]
- The Swingle Singers (version 2) [Amazon]
- VoicePlay (Bollywood Jingle Bells) [iTunes] [Amazon]
- Jingle Bell Fantasy (Gold Company recording)
I urge you to take the time to do this activity with your choral ensemble – particularly an advanced one that is going to listen carefully and react creatively. Feel free to use my playlists as a starting point, and let me know what works and what you changed!