Within the primary notes of many traditional Christmas songs, we’re transported on to the festive season. Why is it that it’s these explicit items of music that get us pondering of the vacations?
In his ebook “Music’s Meanings,” the favored music researcher Philip Tagg explores the methods by which we as listeners construe the music that we hear. Tagg applies semiotics, the research of how we interpret indicators on the planet round us, to music. These indicators could also be considered in a different way by completely different folks and will change their that means over time.
To illustrate this idea, Tagg cites the instance of the pedal guitar, initially drawn from Hawaiian musical custom and carrying connotations of the islands. Eventually this instrument discovered its approach into nation music, so efficiently that Tagg argues at this level, we’re prone to instantly consider nation music when listening to the instrument, with out the idea of Hawaii ever crossing our minds.
As the pedal guitar could place us instantly throughout the realm of nation music, there’s one instrument that may possible do the identical for Christmas – sleigh bells.
Sleigh bells
From gentle orchestral items akin to Prokofiev’s “Troika” (1933), proper by way of to Ariana Grande’s “Santa Tell Me” (2014), sleigh bells have lengthy acted as handy shorthand for composers to inform their listeners that this piece belongs to the Christmas canon.
The causes for this hyperlink stem from the non-musical world. We affiliate Christmas with the winter season and snowy climate. Sleighs, by way of their use as transport in such climate, developed a direct associative hyperlink with Christmas, and consequently, so did the bells used to warn pedestrians of their method. As with Tagg’s pedal guitar instance, we’ve reached the purpose the place we typically hyperlink sleigh bells straight with the idea of Christmas, fairly than pondering of the middleman thought of the sleigh in any respect.
There’s a hyperlink to the broader instrument household of bells too. Through the apply of church buildings ringing out their bells, notably in celebration of the start of Christ, bigger bells have additionally developed a presence, not solely in Christmas music, however in Christmas decorations and artwork.
Last yr, the UK Official Charts Company printed an inventory of the “top 40 most-streamed Christmas songs”. If you had been to hearken to the record, you’d discover bell-like sounds within the majority of them, from the glockenspiel-like introduction of Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” (1994) to the synthesized tubular bells of Band Aid’s “Do They Know It’s Christmas” (1984).
There are different musical components which assist unfold the Christmas cheer, from lyrical melodies to strident brass components. Most of those components although, have one factor in frequent. They aren’t fashionable sounds, or notably frequent in fashionable pop music, and as a substitute, they remind us of the previous.
The nostalgia of Christmas
Christmas is a nostalgic vacation, in additional methods than one. The phrase “nostalgia” initially referred to a sort of homesickness, fairly than the fond remembrance of a hazy previous time that we extra generally use it to confer with now. But each senses of the phrase can be utilized to explain the emotions we affiliate with Christmas.
It’s a time the place many people journey house to household, taking not solely a geographical journey, however a temporal one, immersing ourselves in a world of well-worn custom and familiarity, the place the tempo of our day-to-day life doesn’t apply.
Artists know this, feeding our nostalgia by way of music, lyrics and visuals which evoke the previous. This is probably why most Christmas albums encompass interpretations of previous vacation classics, fairly than unique materials. It’s a simple attraction to the nostalgic and the acquainted; if we already know a music, it’s simpler to instantly latch on to this new recording. Some artists although, take the nostalgia journey one step additional, emulating what’s arguably the final word Christmas model of music – the straightforward listening crooner music.
Whether it’s Bing Crosby or Nat King Cole, the heat of a crooning voice nestled amongst gentle orchestral instrumentation has change into inextricably linked with Christmas. It’s a sound that, until you may have a private affinity with the model, you’re unlikely to listen to a lot exterior of the festive season.
It’s telling that when Billie Eilish carried out a model of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” on “Saturday Night Live” in 2023, she eschewed her standard synthesized sounds in favor of a conventional trio of piano, drums and upright bass, and delivered the vocal in a mild, warming tone. It all conspires to make us consider some imagined, less complicated previous, with chestnuts by the hearth and picturesque snow settling exterior.
Finally, we return to that record of the most-streamed Christmas songs. There’s one artist, and certainly one album, that makes the highest 20 with two entries – Michael Bublé, together with his 2011 album “Christmas.” Checking this album in opposition to our record of Christmas musical components reveals a clear sweep. It’s crooned from high to backside, options flippantly orchestrated variations of traditional Christmas songs, and sure, consists of sleigh bells. It doesn’t get rather more Christmassy than that.
Samuel J Bennett is Senior Lecturer in Music Production, Nottingham Trent University, England.
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