O Come, O Come, Emmanuel

Red.

It’s a Mormon Guitar first.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

Christmas isn’t the only reason I swapped the black shirt for the red one this month. So let’s dig into this month’s arrangement to find out why.

I’ve wanted to do O Come O Come Emmanuel for a long time. So long, in fact, that I’m not sure why I never sat down and worked it out before now. For me, it is the most spiritual and emotional Christmas hymn there is. And as we all know… emotion is my jam.™

Seriously though, if you can sing or listen to O Come O Come Emmanuel and not feel anything, you’re dead inside. It grabs everyone. It’s like the Comfortably Numb of hymns.

But there is something strangely different about this hymn compared to others that we sing. (Besides the fact that it is not actually in our current hymnbook)

It’s haunting. Extremely haunting.

“Wait a second… you just said it’s the most spiritual Christmas hymn for you. Now you’re telling me it’s dark? Spiritual music can’t be haunting or dark. Maybe you should just scratch this arrangement and instead give us a nice acoustic version of Scatter Sunshine…”

No. No… Nope.

Listen people. Music is a language. A physical language and a spiritual language. Powerful, uplifting music is everywhere, in all forms and styles, and I truly believe Heavenly Father is behind it, using it to bless his children. Music speaks to each of us differently the same way God speaks to each of us differently. So let’s all stop judging people based on their musical tastes. Turn off your brains and turn on your hearts.

Where was I… Oh yeah, O Come O Come Emmanuel.

One of the reasons the haunting melody is packed with emotion is because this hymn comes from  medieval times. Right in the thick of the apostasy, when people felt lost, looking for hope.

Not a lot of reason to sing Scatter Sunshine back then.

The melody actually comes from a plainsong called Veni Emmanuel. Plainsongs were/are chants sung at church services in the early western Christian church. They’re monophonic, meaning they only have a a single melody line. No harmonies or accompaniment. (Kind of like monks singing gregorian chants. OK, exactly like monks singing gregorian chants.)

Now here is what I find so fascinating about O Come O Come Emmanuel. Even though it was written as a single melody line, when you start to apply some chords and harmonies to it, you start to see how deep and complex it really is. There is so much hidden behind that single melody line. It’s amazing.

Now with most modern pop music, you have maybe three or four chords used throughout the song. Any guitar player can tell you that. A lot of the time, you can go an entire verse, sometimes and entire song, with maybe one or two chord changes.

But when I started applying different harmonies to O Come O Come Emmanuel, I found it became a marathon of chord changes. For most of the first verse, I’m changing chords with every note of the melody.

That’s four chord changes per measure.

Each new note in the melody brought a new chord, a new voice, a new texture. And because it was written as a plainsong, every chord voicing you’ve ever heard of this song was just an interpretation by whomever did that arrangement. I feel like there is still so much more behind this simple melody, just waiting to be discovered and experienced.

Man, I love music.

Back to red shirt.

There’s a simple reason for the shirt. I wanted a black background for this song. With my black shirt, I quickly became two arms and a floating head playing the guitar. It’s a Christmas hymn so I swapped it for a red shirt. Problem solved.

I wanted to switch up the aesthetic of the video to go with the hymn. I don’t have drones for swooping aerial shots of me playing on top of Mt. Everest. I don’ t have a video crew. I don’t even have a video person. It’s just me. I just have a camera and a guitar. I hit record. I play. That’s all I can do. So changing the background color is pretty much the extent of my capabilities at the moment.

The black background is supposed to add to the whole medieval, Apostasy, haunting feeling of the hymn; A hymn about anxiously anticipating the coming of the Messiah to save Israel. Hoping for a brighter future.

But it’s specifically meant to lead into the third verse.

While I added different chords and harmonies to the first two verses, I decided to do the third verse as it was originally written.

As a true plainsong.

Just the melody.

Focused on emotion.

With reverb cranked to Basilica levels.

Played with just a whisper.

Looking for the light of hope.

Even when surrounded by complete darkness.

O come, O come, Emmanuel,
And ransom captive Israel,
That mourns in lonely exile here,
Until the Son of God appear.
Rejoice ! Rejoice ! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Rod of Jesse, free
Thine own from Satan’s tyranny ;
From depths of hell Thy people save,
And give them victory o’er the grave.
Rejoice ! Rejoice ! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Dayspring, from on high,
And cheer us by Thy drawing nigh;
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night,
And death’s dark shadows put to flight.
Rejoice ! Rejoice ! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.