You’re Invited!

We’d like to invite our students at Cantabile to take part in our Virtual Christmas Medley. It’s no doubt this year has been quite the journey, but we are still so proud of all our students in keeping up with their learning and musical progress. We’d like to celebrate this achievement by creating something a little extra special for our students and make it an exciting and creative musical experience!

What is Cantabile’s Virtual Christmas Medley?

This will be a virtual collaboration of our students at Cantabile. Students can record themselves playing their parts to a choice of Christmas tunes. Once they submit their recordings, this will then be combined and edited together into a virtual medley.

How do I take part?

Step 1 – Choose which Christmas song you’d like to play and download the score. Learn the part that is for your instrument. Some songs may be slightly trickier so it may be best to check with your teacher if you are unsure.

Step 2 – Practice your part! You may want to take your part into your lesson if you’d like to check it with your teacher.

Step 3 – Download the correct Click Track for your chosen song.

Step 4 – When you’re ready to record, find an interesting place and background (even your lounge room is fine) and record while using the Click Track.

Step 5 – YOU MUST PLAY ALONG WITH THE CLICK TRACK! This is very important, as we cannot use your recording if you do not play along with it. Please refer to ‘How to Use the Click Track’ below for more information.

Step 6 – Send your video to enquiries@cantabileschoolofmusic.com.au by the 14th December for it to be added into our Virtual Christmas Medley

Choice of Christmas Songs (Score – Click to Download) 

All parts will be contained in the file so you will have to find the part that corresponds to your instrument.

White Christmas

Jingle Bells

Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas 

We Wish You a Merry Christmas

How to Use the Click Track

When you are ready to record your chosen song, you will need to record it while using the Click Track. This is to make sure all students will be playing in the correct time and speed when we put it together.

  1. Download the Click Track for your chosen song above.
  2. The Click Track will have a count in of a number of beats before the audio starts. Please refer to the chart below to see how many count in beats there will be for each song.
  3. It might be best to try a test-run and play along with the audio a few times before you start to record.
  4. When you’re ready to record, we don’t want to hear the Click Track in the recording. When using the click track, make sure you either use a pair of headphones, or have another person conduct for you while you play during the recording.

Here’s a list of how many count in beats there will be for each song:

White Christmas – 2 bars of 4 beats

Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer – 2 bars of 4 beats

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas – 2 bars of 4 beats

White Christmas – 2 bars of 4 beats

We Wish You a Merry Christmas – 2 bars of 3 beats with a 1 beat anacrusis

When do I need to submit my recording?

Students should submit their recording by the 14th of December to submit@cantabileschoolofmusic.com.au

Guidelines for Video

We would love to see you performing in a place that’s special to you. It may be in your

Check the conditions

Make sure the conditions for recording are good. If you’re outside, make sure there is not too much wind or background noise. If you’re inside make sure the lighting is bright.

Don’t forget the click track

If you are an individual entrant, make sure you’ve got a pair of headphones so you can listen to the click track while recording your video.

If you are an ensemble, make sure your conductor or leader has a pair of headphones so they can listen to the click track. If you don’t play in time with the click track we will not be able to use your recording.

Time to tune

For instruments that need to tune, please the tone provided: It is A=440.

Remember to Keep Still

Keep the camera still and focussed on one view. Use a tripod if you have access to one.

Have a Test Run

Do a test recording to make sure the sound and image quality is good. It’s also good just to check if you are able to play along with the Click Track.

Saving Your Recording

Save your recording. A video recording would be best but audio recording are fine too. Any file type and size is fine. If a file is too large to send then you may wish to save it as a YouTube video (unlisted only please), we will accept YouTube links as well.

PLEASE DO NOT DO THE FOLLOWING:

Don’t wear any clothing with obvious branding. We will not be able to use any video with overt advertising in it (school uniform and banners are acceptable).

Don’t include any inappropriate content. We will not use your video if this is the case.