fantasia on jingle bells (2025 Christmas Music Event Submission)

Hello, all. Coming at you with something a little different for the event, but I hope you find it at least interesting, even if you don't particularly like it. I've basically decided to get really good at writing for strings nowadays, and since I'm mostly an atonalist, cello is the easiest since computers can't play that kind of stuff; the implied timbres are super important. So enjoy hearing me poorly play this miniature fantasia on Jingle Bells. I promise there's a method to the madness 😄

Hi @Monarcheon!

It's so smart and creativer for you to divide the original Jingle Bells melody to different segments and place between interlude passages like the tremolos. Those techniques like sul ponticello, tasto, vibrato and harmonics are really used with great effect, and as you say, the implied timbres are super important for this to really give a refreshingly new look to an otherwise clichéd melody! 

On 12/19/2025 at 5:38 AM, Monarcheon said:

So enjoy hearing me poorly play this miniature fantasia on Jingle Bells. I promise there's a method to the madness

You are just too humble! Your playing is so good here and I promise I enjoy it wholeheartedly! Thx very much for playing this yourself, the computer rendition would be umch worse than your playing! Also, thank you for joining the event and becoming more active again in the forum!

P.S. Honestly if Peter didn't sneak in giving you a badge first, I would give you one too! You totally deserve the "String Aficionado" badge!

Henry

Hi @Monarcheon!

At first I was very puzzled by this piece as it was very difficult for me to hear how it was at all related to Jingle Bells.  But I have since listened better with the help of the score and I can confidently say that I do hear it.  You have cleverly fragmented the theme and augmented each fragment into its own unique musical gesture.  The extended tremolo on one note I perceive as a development of the basic repeated notes "Jingle Bells".  While the tremolos between two different notes I perceive as a development of "Jingle all...".  "...the way" is developed in measure 10.  I maybe would have liked for the associations to the original Carol to be more obvious but you certainly bring your own particular style to the season!  I love your setting of "Dashing through the snow..." in measure 23.  Some of the remaining material still puzzles me however in how it is related to the Carol - did you take a lot of liberties with it?  Thanks for sharing this wonderful recording!  I think your performance is excellent and really brings out the unique creepy tone colors of sul ponticello and sul tasto and harmonics and tremolos all put together and what not - it's an extended technique frenzy!  Makes for a particularly spine-chilling Christmas!  Haha

Hi @PeterthePapercomPoser, thanks for the kind words. Yes, a lot connects to the original them in some way, but obviously in a way that's idiosyncratic to me, right? There are some very obvious things like this...

...and there are other pretty obvious quotes: mm. 17–18 are just the latter half of the main theme's antecedent phrase, mm. 19–20 are a condensed version of the antecedent as a whole (<E, G, C, D, E, F, (E,) D, G>), and the notes for the tremolo parts are the first three notes of the theme (<E, G, C>). 

But then there are just decisions that I made artistically. For instance, I think the idea that the main melody of the non-introductory carol can be condensed into a pentachordal diatonic subset with only one semitone is very fascinating, so I emphasized the semitone throughout my setting as like an opposite to diatonicity. So lots of semitonal dyads (both harmonic and melodic) all about. Sounds rough, which I like, and also meets the design philosophy. For example, passages like m. 16 where there are both ic1s and ic2s, which, to me, emphases that friction between the diatonic and chromatic.

But, to be honest, I didn't think that hard about it, haha. Most of the time, I just kinda liked the dissonance 🙂 I think the fact that you can hear echoes of the original is way more interesting than having every single thing be attached to it. Thanks again for your eyes and ears!