"The First Noel/Beautiful Things"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AWS5yVRJ5s

The Songs:

The First Noel - William Sandys (PTX version): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0u5UvnKlCTA

Beautiful Things - Gungor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1spkhp41ig4

The Why:

I was going through chord charts for Christmas songs to play this holiday season. As I practiced “The First Noel,” the chords in the key of G reminded me of the chord progression in “Beautiful Things” by Gungor. I tried to play the “The First Noel” in 4\4 time, normally in 3\4 time, and soon it sounded just like “Beautiful Things.” (Well, maybe not the original, but the version I’d done with the Lacey Hearts.) [Listen to other mash-ups by the Lacey Hearts by clicking the Lacey Hearts tag on the sidebar!]

The How:

Since I was making this arrangement by myself, I used Bandhub.com to record the multiple parts. Playing in G, I added a Capo 1 since the verses of “The First Noel” got a little low for me. Starting with simple arpeggio-like picking with the intro chord progression, I did the first two verses and choruses of “The First Noel” almost like normal. In between the verses I played that chord progression one more time and sang “ooo”s to the “You make me new” melody in “Beautiful Things.” Right after the second “Noel” chorus, I go into the chorus of “Beautiful Things” twice - first in the lower octave, then jumping up to the higher. Then the main melody comes back in with a third verse of “Noel,” and I added some “ooo”s from the tune of “Beautiful Things.” The “Noel” chorus is sung twice, building up the ending, and in the harmony parts I layered in lines from “Beautiful Things” on the “Born is the king…” line at the end of the “Noel” chorus. To end the song, I’m in three part harmony singing the “You make me new…” line.

A cool thing about Bandhub.com is that you get to collaborate with not only other musicians, but also with people who like music engineering and mixing. A collaborator submitted some mix alterations to my original arrangement, and it makes my cheap USB Rockband Mic sound like I’m singing into a quality mic on a stage in a big, full room (to me, anyway)! If you upgrade to the paid version of Bandhub, you get to use the mixing functions in the app, but not if you only use the free version.

The Story:

I love “The First Noel” because of the story that it paints in its verses, how this third verse ties the virgin birth in a manger to what Jesus actually came to do, and why Christmas is a joyful and exciting occasion to be celebrated. As for me, I experienced God at work in my life at a young age and I believe Jesus was more than someone who was born, lived, and died in a different part of the world a long time ago. Don’t get me wrong, this blog is not my conversion method. It is just to share things I enjoy about music in all areas of life. As a musical storyteller, I found that merging these two songs together helps continue the story into our lives now: Jesus came to reunite us with God, and as we live to love and please Him, he stands in for us and makes us new from the inside out. (To read from the source about this concept, check out Matthew 1:20-23; John 1:1-14; II Corinthians 5:17-21; Romans 5:1-2; Hebrews 10:14.)

Back at the start, the Word says sin broke us apart from God and brought death, pain, evil and brokenness into the world (I’m thinking of the verses in “Beautiful Things” here, “All this pain, I wonder if I’ll ever find my way…” and “All this earth, could all that is lost ever be found? Could a garden come up from this ground at all?”). But by Jesus’ perfect life, death and resurrection, God made a way to restore His creation’s beauty and purpose: to be one with Him, to see and live in the true beauty of His creation, to love Him and each other by free will and not by fear or forced servitude (Check out Romans 11:36-12:2; Micah 6:8; John 14:15-21; Romans 6:15-19; Galatians 5:1, 13; Hebrews 8:6-12; I John 3:16, 4:10-16). And the first “noel” is what we pinpoint as the start of that plan and process of the redeeming transformation of us and the world.