INTRODUCTION
Christmas music you either love it or hate and reminds me of my younger days around Christmas and listening to Christmas music. I know there is too much of the older hits which now I’m bored of them like All I Want For Christmas by Mariah Carey the most played Christmas song and can be heard throughout the lands from shops, to the office and even in pubs and bars. It can seem like a daunting task to make Christmas music and especially on a budget or without any sort of knowledge on how to make it and what makes a great Christmas song but I’ll try and explain all this as I go along. To explain what makes a great Christmas song takes a few factors like lyric content if you have lyrics, the question does it evoke the Christmas feel but the sounds play a massive roll in shaping the song and final product. Web search for ideas on what are the Christmas instruments to use and your own collection of synthesizer plugins you use inside your DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) I use FL Studio but you might be using a different one. There are lots of free plugins and samples you can use and can be found all around the internet or there are some cheap paid stuff you can find which I’ll be going though both paid and non paid services as I know how I can’t afford those one of payments even though I have lots of plugins that I own from all the years I’ve been buying them they are my babies. The stuff I’ll be discussing you will need a DAW application but alternatively you can search online for free music making applications which are ready to go and are online based or free music making software like Garage Band is another good source. The great thing about Christmas music is it can come in many flavours from party stuff like House, Jungle/Drum and Bass, Techno and all the others from Hip Hop, Reggae, Pop and Electronic music I’ve made all the above apart from Techno and Pop actually as I don’t make Techno or Pop I’m not that kind of artist.  Â
MIDI
One thing that also makes a great Christmas song is a good Christmas carol and free sites which offer MIDI to all your favourite carols is a sure way to start with the right tools. MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is in short the pattern and only the pattern with no sound which you would use samples and plugins to get sound of it and hear the patten. It does take arranging as the file would be the whole pattern it’s up to you how to break the pattern into easier digestible portions which I like to use the selector and highlight a single line but first I play it to see where to start and end the selected bit and copy and paste the line into it’s own sampler repeating until it’s complete. I also number them as I go along and decide what goes where from 1-7 usually including the drum pattern which I name drums or something like that. For the bass I usually makes something up or take the very bottom notes of the MIDI pattern and use that as a bass to run along side the main stuff. To add my own touch to it I change the pattern ever so slightly or make up a pattern or ending as sometimes you need it to loop well so making up the end for the end of loop finish is a must unless it fits in the bar then you are good to go. There are many websites to chose from just search for stuff like free Christmas carols MIDI and you will get a wide selection of choices or if you know the carol search for the carol name followed by free MIDI. The great thing is you can release them on all major music streaming platforms as they are all in the public domain. I wouldn’t use contemporary songs if you want to sell them and put them up on all music streaming websites as it will never pass but places like Bandcamp is a great way to giveaway a free download of the remix or remixes and is totally free.         Â
SYNTHESIZERS & SAMPLES
Now you have some MIDI you’re going to need some synthesizer sounds to go with it. There are plenty of free and paid stuff out there but the two I use and pick is for the paid stuff Splice.com and for the non paid stuff Pixabay.com. Splice.com has a wide range of synthesizer plugins which you can rent to own by paying anything from $5.99 – $25.99 a month and paying a bit off each time until it’s paid off and it’s yours to keep. It has all the top brands which are in fact emulators but are good as but was all taken from old hardware. Not only that it has a wide range of samples which you can spend as little as $5.99 for 500 samples a month which is more than enough to make several albums with and also has some good Christmas instruments which I like to cut up and make something new out of. I have quite a few plugins and used quite a lot of their samples from Splice.com which I’m happy about and use them in most of my Electronic and some rave stuff I make but are many sounds which evoke Christmas. Pixabay.com is a free sample based website which I find all the sound effects for all my Christmas stuff and also notes. There are loops and one shots and for the loops I like to cut them up into a one shot and make something new out of it’s how I also use the loops I bought off Loopmasters.com a very long time ago. Both Splice.com and Pixabay.com has good searches so it’s easy to search for things like trumpets, snow tread, clarinet etc and get what you are looking for also there is a lot of Santa related stuff for your Santa songs which I used a few times now in various of songs I made. Or you can use the MIDI in a different way and make something completely new up from the pattern revamping the carols as what I did in my second Christmas album I made. I made a Christmas synthesizer plugin called Chriszer and is a free download and can be found on this website but I’ll leave a link in the button below. But that is one plugin you can use to revoke the feel of Christmas or alternativly you can search on your web browser for things like free Christmas synths or cheap Christmas synths or free Christmas samples or cheap Christmas samples and you should get a good selection to choose from. Both the piano and the electric piano are both great tools to use to get you that feel with merry chords and you can’t lose.                    Â
WRITING A SONG
If you enjoy writing songs and you have the ability to sing or rap then making your next Christmas hit is always a fun way to do something practical. Depending on your ability of either rapping or singing or even both you first start with some words and as it’s all about Christmas you use Christmas terms. If you are stuck on what words to use there are plenty of places you can go to find words associated with Christmas just type in stuff like all words associated with Christmas for a wide range of options to pick from. The steps I take when writing a song is firstly writing some sort of poem which I later convert into a song by either rewriting lines or answering like a response to what I wrote. For rhyming songs or raps there are also lots of free rhyming dictionaries online or just simple type in all words that rhyme with insert word here. Sometimes when I’m looking for a better word or words associated with that word I use rhyming dictionaries and other sources but I do say try and do the rhyming yourself and not depend too much on the online sources I mentioned. Having a beat or some sort of melody behind you while you write is always a given so feel free to put on some instrumental beats to your style or get on the instrument if you have one and start playing notes and see what you come up with failing that stick on something you feel it has to be what you feel and see where you go from there. Never make the lines too long as it will be hard to sing and fit within the music sing back the lyrics each line you write making sure it ends correctly in the space of verse 1, hook, verse 2, hook, bridge, crescendo (the big finish). Topics to consider are things like loneliness, Santa, traditional themes like the birth of baby Jesus, The Three Kings, The North Star, to more jolly numbers like getting drunk around Christmas, Santa spending on you or even a song about mince pies you can always search the web for ideas on other topics but that’s a few to consider doing or writing about.        Â
MUSESCORE
If you want to make sheet music or MP3s out of instruments then MuseScore 3 is a perfect tool to use. The interface is easy to use and you can either put the notes in one by one on the staff or you can stick your keyboard on and play something and it will record the notes and put on the staff. There are a number of instruments to choose from including percussion sounds, horns, strings and wind instruments so it’s perfect for the next classical Christmas instrument track. I like to make melodies and cut them up in FL Studio to make something else out of it from the MP3s saved from MuseScore. What’s also good about it it’s all free and takes a download of the app and setup to get it up and running but a part from that it’s good to go and endless fun making sheet music and MP3s.Â
IN CONCLUSION
In conclusion there are lots of sites you can go to to find stuff for your Christmas music just by searching on Goggle will help you find the stuff you need. It may take some time to find the real good stuff but with a bit of patience and time you will find some decent stuff you can use in your Christmas production. Sometimes it’s worth paying some money to really get the sounds you want even if that means digging deep as you can always use it again cos there’s usually lots to choose from. As I said before getting the right sounds for your tracks really helps a big deal if you really want to stick to the traditional but unconventional route then be sure to go for authentic instruments and sounds and once again stuff that evokes the Christmas feel or go the other way and bring something new it’s all up to you how you handle it and how the tracks pans out, amazing hopefully.
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