Jingle Maria

I love happy Christmas Music, I hope you do too - there is something very special about a Happy Christmas song. Jingle Maria is a happy, funny, silly Christmas song. To bring a smile to the Winter glooms! Jingle Maria is song to drive the grinches and scrooges crazy. a song that tries to put the joy and wonder back. Simply, it is about a little girl who is as excited as she can be about the real meaning of Christmas.

Looking back on a lens last visited in November, I can only hope that the coming weeks bring you all a beautiful Christmas season. Jingle Maria may be quiet for eleven months of the year, but she will always return in the Winter to cheer hearts as the nights grow longer again. Thank you for visiting my page, I hope you will enjoy the song and remember Jingle Maria at Christmastide.

Bring back the magic and the stories of old!

As a child, I often suffered the glooms in October and November. These were only lifted by the coming Advent season. The school plays, visiting the Christmas tree shop, making decorations, Mum making her own Christmas puddings and most of all the preparation for the Carol Concert. Our school concert took place in a large music venue rather than the school, it involved soloists, reading and both Junior and Senior Choirs and was unashamedly traditional and festive too.

Then as time moved on it became unfashionable to admit you were Christian, the season became Xmas and was all about buying, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, wrapping gifts, sending, receiving - and the sales which followed. Hard on the heels of this came guilt. Half the world was starving and all we could do was gorge ourselves and give expensive presents to each other.

The magic had all but died. Christmas songs became protest songs. Merry Christmas, War Is Over is a fine example. Along came BandAid and wonderful things were achieved by top rank musicians - but the joy of a simple family Christmas was eclipsed by all the self-doubt and guilt at consumerism. Of course, none of this ever put a stop to consumerism, if anything the worship of Brand took over from the worship of God, but it gave a respectful face to the festival which was fast becoming "Winterval" to avoid alienating non-Christians.

Jingle Maria aims to be happy and to recognise the basic Christmas message!

The first store to feature my song was Amazon, which is a neat reason to give them a whole module to themselves!

How Jingle Maria was born

If you have read my other lenses you will know I am a keen composer and arranger. I submit my music to several sites, but the Sibelius Music site is the main one. Back in the Spring, this site underwent a massive overhaul - fine tuning still continues now - and the Top Ten categories on the former site were dropped. The Beta site had only one Top Ten and it was immutable. That list contained more Ave Marias than anything else.

Top Scores were also displayed for stores and composers, but Jingle Bells featured more than any other - and this was Spring! We commented on the Sibelius forum that these were the two songs that were overwhelmingly popular and that, to succeed as composers, we needed to write Ave Marias or arrange Jingle Bells.

The germ of an idea was born. Colin and I sat down to Sunday lunch and played with the idea of Ave Bells for a while - then the chorus of Jingle Maria came into my head. I scribbled the idea on paper and filed it away.

It was late Summer when Jingle Maria demanded "out" and I worked well into the night writing the main tune and lyrics and scoring it for male lead singer, children's choir, strings and latin percussion. The next day I worked on an MP3 for demonstration, uploaded it to the site and waited.... and waited.... and waited....

I knew it was a joyful song and that it brought together the family and traditional aspects of Christmas in a hopeful way but it remained firmly undiscovered in the depths of Sibelius Music. It was then that I took my singing voice out of semi-retirement, transposed the tune into a key that was friendlier for female vocalists and recorded it. I had read about Tunecore in another Squidoo lens and I thought I would put out my own happy song for Christmas.

Jingle Maria features on my CD Flying to Meet the Sunrise too.

With Jango, you can create your own radio station. You select established artists that you enjoy and newer music is played along with them. You vote for the songs you like! It is all free. Of course, my hope is that you will enjoy my song and vote to keep it playing on your station, maybe even become a fan. It is easy to sign up and doesn't cost a penny!

A fish out of water?

Vinyl gives way to digital

Early recordings when I was younger were done to half inch tape. This tape carried 8 tracks of music and a skillful engineer would mix them using a desk, then produce a master tape. This could be used to produce vinyls, cassettes and later CDs. Now the computer revolution has made it possible to record to a portastudio hard drive, mixdown on computer and produce your own CDs or music files. This revolution has democratised the recording industry. Whereas once expensive gear and expert knowledge were essential, amateurs can mix their own music, upload it and let it take its chance along with the best that money and the music industry can produce. Although CDs will be available to special order on Amazon, my song is available as a digital single and is gradually being released by various internet outlets. It is quite exciting really.

Where will this all lead?

Who can say whether Jingle Maria will be dancing around one Christmas Tree this year or many. Perhaps when I am old and grey she will be dancing around millions. Perhaps the ambition of a three year old to be a pop star when she grew up will be achieved. (Although growing up seems to have taken a LONG time! LOL...) Perhaps a real star will hear about her and ask to record her next year so that she dances ever more brightly.

Whatever the outcome, I can say that she dances pretty continually in my head! My compositions usually do this for a day or two, but Maria has been at it since September you know. It gets pretty loud at times and causes one or two late nights. Having said this, I hope you will take little Maria into your home for Christmas; but equally well I hope that ALL your days will be merry and bright - and the light, the love and the joy of a true family Christmas will be with you always!

The original score, in the original key. The MP3 here is fully computerized.

I know that the Christmas I had as a child was capable of lifting me out of quite a serious case of S.A.D. It wasn't the presents, the food or even the holiday so much as the family warmth, the belief that through Jesus birth all would be well and that magical story we all know so well. A Christmas of Innocense. If that sounds trite, I am sad, but Maria was me and I hope that there will be many, many Marias to come....

Do you agree?