 Hi guys, this is Jason here from the Nathaniel School of Music and in this lesson, let's learn the Christmas carol, O little town of Bethlehem. A few things before we start learning it, I've chosen a specific tune of the song. There are many tunes of this arrangement. There's a choral tune which choirs do and the version I've chosen is also done in a lot of ways. There are a lot of slower versions, so I thought I'll keep it a bit peppy and create like a folk version. So here's introducing you to a groovy folk version of O little town of Bethlehem, right? I'm going to be sharing the song on F major scale, but I've also notated it on the G major scale if you'd like to learn it on that. So do head over to Patreon and get yourselves a copy of the notation, else it's okay you can still follow along. Let's get started. So I've chosen F major scale, let's just go through that a little bit. One flat, B flat. And the chords which we build usually in a folk song are generally going to be the one chord, the four chord and the five chord of the scale. So if you take F major scale, F would be the one, this would be your F major triad. I want to get used to that. This is going to be used a lot in the song. Then you have the four chord, which is B flat major, right? And you have the five chord, which is C major, which is C, E, G and sometimes especially in the case of this song, we may also have a C seventh chord, which is, it's a four note chord, C, E, G, B flat, okay? And before you start playing the song, it's also advisable to learn or practice each of these chords in its different inversions. So you could try out F, A, C, A, C, F, first inversion, C, F, A, second inversion, similarly C, E, G, E, G, C, E, then the B flat, B flat, D, F, D, F, B flat, F, B flat, D. So these are pretty much the chords you're going to use in the song, okay? So I'll come back to the chords very shortly. Let's first do the melody. The whole intention of this lesson is to be able to play the melody, the chords, the rhythm pattern. Well, that's pretty much everything, isn't it? Every aspect of music on the piano, you're going to make people sing along and hopefully even dance along because we have a rhythmic version created for you. So let's first study the melody. It's a four-line melody and the first two lines sort of repeat their copies of each other and then again the last line will be the same as the first two lines. And then you have a different unique third line. It's sort of an A, A, B, A style of songwriting used very commonly for folk music, okay? So let me demonstrate the A melody, okay? Oh, little town of Bethlehem, how still we see the line, right? Let's break that down. Oh, little town. Got that? C, F, F, F and keep your fingering floating. You don't have to start here with your thumb, play this finger and then give up the thumb. The thumb can come back, isn't it? You can go, oh, little town, you can bring that back. I've also put a staccato marking in the notation, which allows you that additional time to sort of swap your fingers. Oh, little town of Bethlehem, let's get that. Next was, oh, little town, and then, oh, Bethlehem, oh, Bethlehem, little quicker, so, oh, little town of Bethlehem, pa-rum-pum-pum-pum, pa-ra-ra-rum. Let's move on. How still we see the line, observe how I'm keeping my ring finger for that B-flat. It's highly recommended that you save your ring finger for the black notes on the piano. And then the black note scales or scales using black notes or a scale having a lot of white notes won't really matter if you think about it. It's just the way you align your fingers and be prepared for the melody. So, how still we see the line, do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do. Let's get the whole A-tune, okay, oh, little town of Bethlehem, how still we see the line. And it goes on, above thy deep and dreamless sleep, the silence does go by. And then we have a new line or a new melody where we go, it's almost like a scale going down and up. So, it's quite easy. Just watch the fingers. Again, let's do that slower. Maybe you want to break it like that. All three together, all three parts. And then the everlasting light, repeat, the everlasting light. Now you could cross your thumb, I'm not a huge fan of that, so try to figure out a way to get your thumb here in the first place. And then we repeat the same A melody which we did earlier for line 4, thus constituting an A-A-B-A style of melody writing. Let's work on the B melody one more time, just so that we all get a grip on that. And now, coming to the left hand, so I'm going to break this down for you. The first thing I told you earlier, if you remembered well, is we're just going to use the F major chord, B flat major chord and the C major chord. And it's very important that you practice all the inversions of the chords. In other words, F major, still F major, still F major, pretty much three ways of playing F major. Why inversions are also important for the left hand is otherwise the left hand may collide with the right hand. And then to compensate, you'll play the right hand melody super high and then it'll start sounding very screechy. And the left hand, you might want to go very low, but then that'll start sounding muddy. So we try to play in and around middle C, especially whenever we are playing our triads and block chords together. So let me tell you the chords as I'm playing line A, whole of first line, we pretty much just hold F. So you could just start by holding the chord, maybe a little and Beth Bethlehem. So you go Bethlehem. And now how still we see the lie will be B flat, C and F. How still we change to C, F. How still we see the lie. Okay, that's a quick change B flat, C, F and notice I'm using the inversions, B flat, C, F, let's do the whole line. So it's F major, long, long chunk of F major, then B flat, C and F. And the B flat, C and F serve as resolving chords or chords which are not yet resolved. B flat is what we call the predominant or the subdominant. The C is what we call as the dominant and that glides really neatly to the tonic chord which is number one in this case F major. So it's also an incredible songwriting when you're learning a Christmas song. The melodies are so harmonic in nature in the sense that the melodies are composed keeping the harmony and the chords at the forefront while writing, right? You probably don't even know what came first or maybe they both happened together. So if you go F major in the beginning, oh little town of Bethlehem, how still B flat in this inversion, last time, repeat the same thing for line two, okay. And now the next section, again you just pretty much latch on to F major for the first two cycles or bars. So for that part we go, what did I do there? The ever at that word we play F major, lasting same word but the next syllables, lasting B flat major, light which is C dominant seventh, the everlasting light, again, the ever B flat C seventh, if you cannot play C seventh it's okay, you can play C major instead and repeat the last line or let me just do the third line again, the last line will be same as the first line F major, B flat C major, great. So now coming to a nice peppy rhythm pattern which can add a lot of flavor. So the rhythm pattern which I've chosen is a very popular Latin rhythm pattern which I think all of you pianists need to get used to, it's called the thresio. Now I have done a few videos on this pattern, thresio, triplets and a lot of other rhythmic topics perhaps you'd like to check them out as well at some point. So the thresio rhythm pattern goes like this, okay how do I count this, one e and a two e and a three e and a four e and a one e and a agreed, three e and a four e and a one e and a two e and a, so one e and a, the a of the one, one e and a two e and and how I'm voicing it is I'm playing the one with the bass, one e and a two e and a, it's sort of like a broken chord where I do the bass note and then the remaining two notes of the chord, the middle note and the high note which are the remaining two beats of the thresio, one e and a two e and a, creating a very dancy vibe, one e and a two e, beat it up, why don't you try the thresio first on the f chord and how I like to practice is play the thresio and just first of all try and sing, oh little town of Bethlehem, oh little town of Bethlehem, oh sing whatever, ideally the song, you don't have to be a great singer, we are just trying to sing in order to coordinate with our piano, okay, so once you've got a hold of that you then play the melody, oh little town of Bethlehem, let's only do that one e and a two e and a three e and a now, okay, and in my arrangement I've also not used the thresio rhythm pattern all the time, I've also just played block chords here and there, I've also done some octave doubling which I'd like you to check out, so I'll break everything down, the first two bars though use the thresio, oh little town of Bethlehem, how still we see the lie, so at how still we see the lie, I am resolving it and not playing it so dancey, I'm just holding the chords, b flat, repeat for line two, quite easy, thresio, hold, let's do that again, little slower perhaps, okay, now moving on to line three which is the only different line, there you do the thresio on F major, another thing which I like you to do will be, you could do like a nice octave thing there which I think is quite cool, it makes the melody a bit stronger, so you go, that's where your octaves come in, so, the octaves of the melody, just to break the thresio feel, you don't want to use it all the time, okay, and then back to holding the chords, the everlasting light, the everlasting light, there I am up agitating that last chord, C dominant, the everlasting light, so light you'll have to hold the tune in your right hand and do this interesting up agio in the left hand, let's do that whole line again and break it down, thresio, octave, blocks and up agio, wow, that's quite a bit, so let's see how it works, okay, let's do that again, octave, blocks, up agio, then the last line, I always recommend my students to practice things on multiple scales, not only be limited by one or what appears to be simple, so work it out on F major and I'd encourage you to try it out on G major as well, the notation is in our patreon page, you can download a copy, we also have a midi version which you could import and also an mp3 and pretty much every format you will want for the notation of O little town of Bethlehem, so in the G major domain, it's going to be pretty much the same, you just start with D and roll with it, okay, goes on and on, right guys, so I hope you found the lesson useful, again this is Jason here from the Nathaniel School of Music, if there's anything else you'd like to learn, do leave us a comment, also requesting you to like, share, subscribe and all those nice things you could possibly do to this YouTube video and I will catch you in the next one, have a lot of fun playing this Christmas song and a lot more are also going to be there, cheers.