In this video, pianist Jon Cheney walks through his arrangement "Carol of the Bells Goes Major," explaining how to play the piece without performing the entire song. He emphasizes a pattern‑based sight‑reading method, noting that the dense 16th‑note texture is repetitive and can be broken down into recognizable motifs. He describes the use of filler notes to enrich the melody and introduces a subtle syncopated, 2‑on‑3 feel. Cheney explains the harmonic shift from the traditional E‑minor setting to a G‑major‑type section (G9 or G2), and how this pivot leads into a brief Jingle Bells medley. He highlights left‑hand technique, advising players to let the right hand run on autopilot while focusing on the bass line, and notes that the arrangement fits the mellow, sleep‑inducing vibe of his "Softly Christmas" album. The walkthrough aims to give viewers a clear sense of the song’s overall sound and practical tips for mastering it.
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Okay, this song is called Carol of the Bells Goes Major. I'm going to talk through it. I'll play through pieces of it. I'm not going to play the whole thing, but I've had a lot of people ask for videos trying to understand what does the song sound like, right? And they can see one page, but what is the whole song like, right? And so you'll be able to watch this video and get a good feel for what this is, right? So this is Carol of the Bells Goes Major, and I'll just talk through kind of how I start. I start pretty simple. So when you're looking at this, it might look hard on the page, right? You've got a bunch of 16th notes here, right, that are all, you know, that kind of looks intimidating, but it's not. It's repetitive. And when I'm sight reading things and reading music, I try to find the patterns. Now obviously Carol of the Bells is going to be a pattern that a lot of pianists are already going to know pretty well, but I just add in a couple notes in between them. And you want to make sure that you emphasize the melody itself, the Filler notes are just there to, to fill, right? It's really easy to do after a little practice. Okay, so that, that's kind of a theme that you're going to hear a lot throughout this song. It kind of sets up how the song eventually turns major, um, and it's a a little bit difficult, maybe, um, it's with when you're playing these filler notes with it, um, so it's kind of a little syncopated there, kind of a little 2 on 3. So, um, again, not, not hard, just practice it. This is where we start to change to a major. So I've kind of resolved, I've moved into this, you know, Carol of the Bells is very often played in an E minor, right? So all I've done is kind of bounced through a few different chords and things to end at the same starting note, but now I switched to, to a G, right? To a G major. It's actually more of a G9 major. G9 major, maybe even a G2. I don't really know the difference between those, so maybe one of you in the comments can tell me. So now that I'm here in this major spot, I said, well, this is fun, let's go into— let's switch it to another song, right? And so we switch over to Jingle Bells here. So So, um, the left hand here is actually a really fun thing to get right if you do get it right. Um, we finished the Jingle Bells section and now we're kind of back in and just kind of riffing on this major, and we're eventually, pretty quickly here, going to pull back into the minor and finish out the song. But this left hand— your right hand should just be kind of in autopilot, so you kind of forget about that. Just put it into autopilot and then pay attention to the left hand. Right, how fun that is, right? I personally love a good fun left hand where you can just let the right hand go. So we keep going. So it just fades out. You can hear that on the recording if you listen to it on Spotify or Apple Music or whatever, right? But now remember, this album is called Softly Christmas, and so sometimes, you know, carol bells can be like It's fine. It's fine for the right thing. For this song, we stay fairly mellow. This is one of those albums you can turn on and just fall asleep to during Christmas season. So anyway, hopefully that helps. Hope you enjoy, um, "Carol of the Bells" goes major.
