[HawaiianSaxMan84]

ALOHA AND HAPPY HOLIDAYS EVERYONE! hehe.

Im trying to work on Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas and Im running off of a pretty basic progression. Im pretty bad at coming up with substitutions and such and was hoping that someone can help me.

Im arranging the song in concert F for a tenor sax, drums, bass trio. Something just really simple and quick, yet effective, hence the reason i want to figure out some other chords. If anyone can/wants to help me out it would be greatly appreciated. No money will be made off of this, it is solely for enjoyment. Proper credits will be given too.

Im just hoping to collaborate with one other person in figuring out an alternate chord progression for this song, but not going too far out. Ill do the rest on garageband and try to have it up by Christmas on youtube. You can contact me directly through email.

[email protected]

Much mahalos!

 

[Roger Aldridge]

I checked to see if this song is in the Real Book of Christmas music. Sorry, it's not. As I remember, this song has fairly decent chord changes. It's not 18th century harmony. It might be okay to use the original changes and add some substitute chords here and there. The main thing would be to use modern harmonic voicings (with higher tensions of the chords). In this way, even if you mostly use the original chord changes, the arrangement will have an updated and fresh sound. Good luck!

 

[HawaiianSaxMan84]

cool beans! that actually helps quite a bit because ive been working on the song today. i put down a very simple bass line to just get familiar with the original changes. i guess ive been playing funk for so long that i feel the need to funk it up, but hearing how the changes go, youre right. I may not have to do much, and i think with the instrumentation im doing, i may have to really dissect the bass line to be able to support the rhythm section more, because other than that, im just using a hihat. (i dont like how midi hihats sound so i try not to use preset drumbeats).

heres a version of the song that im going off of. this is a good idea of the general feel im trying to achieve. its a great arrangement in my opinion. i really like what the bass player does in this recording.

im tired of this song being played so VEEEERRRRRYYYYY slow, so i just wanted to put a little swing in it. i actually only found this video after i started arranging it...i felt bummed because this is such a great arrangement...