Month: June 2025

Xmas Instruments: Piano (pt. 1)

Hammers on strings? Is it percussive? Is it stringy? Play me a song, piano mass.

DG Solaris improvs “Christmas No.2” with a jaunty keyboard beat and a weird AF gratitude for what matters at Xmas. ‘Sworth a jazz minute.

D/troit’s “Motown X-Mas Song” namedrops like on a mission (incl. Marvin on the piano) to imagine the party to end all parties. More pop than R+B.

Brett Eldredge knows “It Must Be Christmas” when all his friends are in town and Tommy plays piano. Sassy easy listening with a skosh of jazz.

Boys in Shorts narrate their music making in “Christmas Lights,” a winsome reflection of light emotionality. Quite quite indie.

More shyly, UFO Race downplays the lights AND the party small talk in favor of commandeering the piano and creating a “Christmas Chime.” Frothy fun indie.

“Crazy 4 Christmas” is Mike Fish getting Dada with Xmas imagery in front of a rocking backdrop. Just my cup of shoe.

Lori (of Lori & David) promises that if you Sit by my white piano, I’ll sing you Christmas carols in the bouncy folk pop of “Ribbon on Top.” Adorable.

Den Dery gets nearly atonal with his jazzy euphoria–SHE’s here for Christmas! Puts him in a “Christmas Piano Mood.” I’m in a groovin’ kinda mood listening.

Xmas Instruments: Organ

Keyboard organs deliver notes by many means: electric, bellows, book, pipes, barrels, and more.

Loretta Lynn’s “Country Christmas” is made musical with her dad on the organ. Corny pop country, what else?

C.W. McCall narrates the memory of another country time when Mama played the organ and we all were to “Sing Silent Night.” Sadly sad.

A couple sentimentalists have prefaced their “Silent Night” rendition with the 19th C. tale of the broken organ and the minister who penned a carol oh the fly without the need for one. Like J. Denver and the Muppets here. Sorry.

Comedy break from Hot Buttered Elves tells the story of “The Old Church Organ.” Dunt dun duhhhhh.

That old chestnut, “The Holly and the Ivy” invokes the playing of the merry organ for Christmas singing, so let us allow Silent Knight Riot’s punk posings.

As olden, “Christmas Bells (A Poem Read by Edward Ian Chappe)” brought to life by Carlos Fandango Music documents many symptoms of the season such as the merrymaking music of the organ grinder. Recitative pop.

Hokey easy listening from Ken Bascue, “Ave Maria On Christmas Day” sets the scene of the organ playing for his mother singing in church. Teardrops follow this memory.

MCS Singers try a more upbeat easy listening recounting that long time ago gift under (?) the tree: the organ! After which she tried to sing of a “Beautiful Christmas to All of Them” responsible for such generosity. Cheers!

More of a party easy listening, “California Christmas Remaster” by Bye Bye Mars features an announced organ solo as a gift to you. Check out the final refrain, though. Meta.

In personification, an electric organ celebrates “N8153A’s First Christmas.” This party pop by Party The Hut and Friends is basement friendly. BYOB.

Xmas Instruments: Ocarina

I tried to master the sweet potato at one time, even serenaded Jimmy Hollister on his KEX radio show back in the day. But i was terrible. It only had five holes in its ceramic body, still it was beyond me.

So let’s get goofy! 2 Dudes and a NES folk ballad us with “Link and Zelda’s Loving Christmas Love,” a young man’s early lessons in dealing with the opposite sex. And how to portal through these video games.

Three Sock Nonsense plays le jazz hot to overwhelm my senses with “Soap on a Rope.” The contents of the Xmas stocking we sneak a naughty peek into includes a blue ocarina… but there’s OH so much more. Mercy.

Xmas Instruments: Maracas

Caribbean beats are all the more danceable with these chac-chacs.

It’s about time we discovered The Annual Christmas Album Band, even if it’s only with the distant parody “Little Maraca Boy.”

Finally parang arrive care of Afeisha Brown (ft. Kiegs). With d’ box bass, d’ toc toc and d’ maracas in dey hands they jump around for “Jam D’ Parang.” It’s family friendly, though, so no over drinking.

The Ragged Flags would care to lure you down south where the dolphins play. You may enjoy “Crackers and Caracas” but this is New Age Island, so it’s a head trip of enlightenment.

Xmas Instruments: Mandolin

A lute, this is the soprano member of a family that uses picks and includes the mandola, octave mandolin, mandocello and mandobass. Usually somber. Can be merry.

Jingle Bots goes with the latter in the hoe down party “Cheer So True.” Proper bluegrass with the mandolin strumming.

Lunavare’s “Fresh Air” posed the simple life where mandolins play and christmases are white. New Age folk.

Jingle Bots’re back with a hyper jig “Jingle All Around.” Fiddle and a mandolin, now. Speedy grass.

Xmas Instruments: Keyboard

Not a piano, well not entirely, the 88 keys are their own thing.

BLAINE & HIS KEYBOARD narrates his morning of gift openings with his mixed genre “Keyboard for Christmas.” This rising showtune takes us on a (long) roller coaster ride of NOT getting the instrument, but then–

Dillon M. self consciously sings Christmasly about singing about himself and offers to add some ’80s keyboard to make it less dull. But, “It’s December” novelty rocks with its comic pop. Thumbs up.

Speaking of which, Nerf Herder’s tribute to “Vivian” invokes Flock of Seagulls, eyeliner, and you’ll play the keyboard when we rock the Math Club Christmas party. Retro rock, for sure. Order that on your RCA Record Club, duderino.

Keyboards and drums get short-listed in several Xmas songs, including the fun pop rap of The BreezeWay’s moody “Christmas has Come a Long Way.” I’m asking for one of those cardboard coats.

Xmas Instruments: Kazoo

The membranophone might only buzz your humming, but it makes fools of mobs. Hand out a bag of ’em at any meeting and see for yourself.

Rob Douglas from Down Under broadcasts from his back room “Me, You & a Xmas Kazoo.” You may discern some fun in this poorly recorded pop folk.

Concave wants to beat you over the head with “A Kazoo for Christmas,” so his cacophonic tantrum is the soundtrack of breaking your lease.

More merrily melodic “Merry Christmas to You” is some funky country from Sidewalk Prophets in which the reason for the season is I got a kazoo. Joyous.

Benny Grunch and the Bunch’s “I Got a Used Kazoo for Christmas” features bongos as well as the titular piece. It’s a fully developed masterpiece of mocking ‘Deck the Halls.’ You may want to run get yours to join in.

Xmas Instruments: Hurdy-Gurdy

This wild wind-up stringed instrument with a keyboard is the party you did not get invited to.

I’ve been listening to a Sting song about a “Hardy Gurdy Man” from his Christmas album, but it’s not really a Christmas song. It’s a timeless tale of fleeting fame or some such misery.

Ryan Chisefsky’s “Hurdy-Durdy Christmas,” however, is the improvvable song about scatting for the Season. Jazzy. Something else.

Xmas Instruments: Horn

Blake Dan swings parang to get a “Horn for Christmas.” It might be a sexual euphemism, but the riddim rulz.

Inspired by Psalms, Sufjan Stevens’s “All the Kings Horns” lays low the pomp of the others for the all new-and-improved KoK. That’s all we know shofar. Mighty folk.

“Santa’s Horn” from The Wizard of Loneliness is an EDM message of urgency. I think something bad happens. Accidentally.

“Christmas Katie” has a horn to blow, for anyone passing by, any time of the year. They call her Christmas ‘cuz that’s her mood. Roll with it. Dank jazzy blues from Widespread Panic. And so should you.

Sure as the horn blows Tom Lindh sings “Merry, Merry Merry Fucking Christmas.” So, you know, BLUE ALERT on this dawdly indie. Goodness!

Rockapella encourages Mr Taxi Driver to honk his horn on the holiday. So with muddied doo wop they sing of the “Hope We Hold” for Christmas Day. Inspirational, we hope, for some.

These same car noises are the subject of everdraed’s “Carol of the Horns.” Cacophonous, man. Yet all are welcome here.

Xmas Instruments: Harp

The Kinnor, the lyre, the ancient veena, the cláirseach, the konghou (or gonghu), the arpa jarocha, the ardin, the saun-gauk, and even the Gravikord are all branches off the evolutionary tree of the harp. That’s a popular idea.

But it is an elegiac thing, so–bummer tidings. Like Dolly Parton and Porter Waggoner’s “Little David’s Harp.” See this Xmas-born blind child plays flawlessly, for the angels. Emotional country, so no happy ending.

Even more tragic, “John Doe No. 24” is blind and mute (and half-wit), but now orphaned and passed around to state homes. Despite getting a harp for Christmas, he misses Mom and Dad. It can’t get much worse…. or can it, Mary Chapin Carpenter?

Well, then came Johnny Cash. “The Ballad of the Harp Weaver” is the poverty stricken widow and starved child, with only a harp they couldn’t sell. Winter sets upon them, and she plays, and suddenly they have everything they want. You don’t suppose…?

Jesus help us! Judy Collins sings of the Nativity, yet no drum does disturb the peace. In this gospel folk, the harp sets the scene “All on a Wintry Night.” Much less pathos.

Plenty of traditional carols mention harps, because–you know–angels: “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear” (ruined by early sell-out rappers Crew X) and “Deck the Halls” (swung by the ever-lovin’ groovester Jesus Presley) among them.

Now, back to novelty, already in progress… Little Kitty Williams growls out the medieval “Christmas Harp.” Nothing else like it.