Writing a Christmas song

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Part of The Young Citizen: The Magazine for Young People

Title: Writing a Christmas song
Year: 1940
Rights
Fulltext: 470 THE YOUNG CITIZEN December, 1940 WORK AND PLAY SECTION WRITING A CHRISTMAS SONG OUR TEACHER· can sing very well, and play the piano, too.- So we have nice music in our room at school. Shortly before Christmas she told us we could write a Christmas song. And we did. It was a real nice song. This is how we did it. Of course we all knew the Christmas story about the birth of Jesus, and the shepherds, · and the ~tar. We talked about it, and then our teacher said, "Who can think of a good beginning for our song?" · Soon Francisca sang to her own tune, "A star was shining so brightly." The class liked this so well that they sang it several times. We talked about the star, since that was the theme of the song Francisca had started. Our teacher asked such questions as these: "Where did the star shine?" and "When did it shine?" and "Why did it shine?" The words "In Bethlehem one night" were sung at once by J uanito to his own tune. When we had this much of our song prepared (our teacher called it the first phrase), it was suggested that we repeat that melody. So we hummed the tune a number .of times in order to keep it in mind. Finally Crispina began singing to the second . phr.ase--as our· teacher called it -the words "The shepherds", but no one could complete the line. Then our teacher asked us where the shepherds were and what they were doing. Elena thought of the remainder of the line, so it was like this: "The shepherds out on · (Please turn ta page 476.) L J1 II A star w.u ~hin . ing bright · ly '" Bech . le ·hem one night. The \hep· herd'> lf P fJJ IJ j JIU JJ llJ. I f1J f J1F Jll Out on ch• h;ll . \ide Were rr.,hc . t>ned by the light .. Glo. ry to God," the .i.n. geh f p J. I !11 r ) I f } J p I r p DJ IJ. j 11 sang. ''Pc.u.:f' Oil thC' eHth," th,ir voic. ~ n.ng .. Wt: bring )'OU .,on· dl!'r · ful c1 · d1ngf, l~ejlJ Ji J l'1Jj vi f >DJ IJ. j JU } J hlJ] II For UJ'.!. - to \OU •'> born Chrnt the lord our Sav · 1our, Th1~ joy· ful Chri_n ·mas morn THE YOUNG CITIZEN WRITING A SONG our original melody until (Continued from page 470) we had made one more the hillside." phrase for the part. "Peace Our teacher said, "How on earth, good will to men" did the shepherds feel when was what Jose suggested, they saw the star?" Some but the class insisted on havone said they were fright- ing the end word rhyme ened by the light of the with the word "sang." We bright star, so we used a thought hard, and Juan fipart of that answer to com- nally suggested "rang.'' plete the line. Now we David then quickly comhad this much of ciur song: pleted the line by saying A star was shining "their voices rang.'' Then brightly we repeated our new tune In Bethlehem one for this line. Our teacher night. said it was a suitable tune, The shepherds out on because it had the ·same the hillside rhythm as our first melody. Were frightened by Our song bad s,till not the light. told the shepherd story. We sang it several times David said it should tell of and decided to change the the angels' message. That last tone, so it would have sounded like a good title, a better ending. This satis- so we named our song lied everyone. We copied The Angels' Message. the words on the black- Then our teacher reboard, and our teacher peated to us th~ Christmas wrote the music above the story. After she had !inwards. ished, she wrote on the The next day we decided blackboard expressions to write more words. Fran- which we remembered, cisca surprised us by sing- such as "wonderful tiding "Glory to God" to a ings," "Saviour," "joyful," different tune, which I and "unto you is born." sounded so much like a We all wanted to say Christmas carol that every- something about "wond-erbody wanted it to be a part ful tidings" next, and finalof our song. Many of the ly Ciriaco suggested this pupils in our room tried to line: "We bring you wonfinish the phrase. Elena's derful tidings.'' We dewords, "The angels sang," cided to sing that to the first seemed most fitting, and part of our original tune. Alberto sang a tune that We thoughi of the words suited her words. for the rest of our song We could n_ot get back to without any difficulty. December, 1940 The words of the middle part of our song were these: "Glory to God," the angels sang; "Peace on earth/' their voices rang. . And the last part of our song had these words.: We bring you wonderful tidings, For unto you is born Chi-isl, the Lord, our Saviour This joyful Christmas morn. Our teacher told us. that the music of our song was arranged by what is 'called the A-B-A arrangement of a song; that is, we composed a complete melody-that one is called Melody A. Then we thought of a new melody-the new one is called Melody B. And then we repeated our Melody A. In that way we had A-B-A. After our completed song had been written on the blackboard - words and music-we sang it again and again. Some of the pupils in our room_ wanted to copy it. "What shall we do with our song, now that it is completed?" our teacher asked. "Let us sing it at our Christmas program," some one suggested. So we used it at our program, and everyone liked it. We hope that you will like it also and will sing it-ADAPTED