My Musical Musings Blog | betsyleebaileymusic.com - The Music of Betsy Lee Bailey

Christmas Day Round

12/3/2025

Janie Thompson (1921-2013)

My aunt Janie Thompson has been gone now for 12 1/2 years, yet I still think of her often at Christmas time. She really shined at planning and performing Christmas shows. Since the early 1950s, she worked at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, taking almost anyone who walked through her doors and teaching them to sing and dance.

In those days just after WWII, BYU was just recovering from being basically a girl's college. During the 1940s, very few young men were NOT off at war. The college was small, comparatively speaking, to what it is now. The President of BYU, Ernest L. Wilkinson, had asked her to come to BYU, organize entertainment shows to tour around Utah and the neighboring states to recruit students to enroll at BYU. She wasn't thrilled to leave her glamorous touring life as a Big Band singer, but she knew that was what she needed to do. (It's still hard for me not to picture her in sequins...)

Janie could organize shows with anybody, polish them up, and take them on the road. After a time, she gained a reputation of doing quality shows and was approached to take touring groups all over the world. Janie had contacts in the U.S. State Department that sponsored her student touring groups to mainly go out entertaining the troops over seas. Often her tours would last several months at a time.

Cory, Tanya, and Betsy singing for a Christmas Show

However, very few students stayed in Provo over the Christmas break and that was when the Program Bureau (that she established) got many calls for student Christmas shows. Janie would just use the few students that were in town and filled in with her neighbors and family members. I remember as a young child singing on many of her Christmas shows.

By the 1990s, she was nearing her retirement and she did fewer and fewer big tours. But she still did Christmas Shows for special gatherings and parties all over the state. She also did a big show with the Youth in her own Ward every year. Those kids did a lot of the material she had first had the BYU kids do on Christmas shows. Then she started writing more and more original songs.

Her "Christmas Day Round 3-Part" was one of the songs she wrote during that later period of her life. I offered it on my website just for fun, having no idea that it would become so popular. Because it is FREE, I don't get to know who downloads it or how they use it. Would be fun to know, though...

Are You Famous?

12/2/2025

Yesterday I sat in a waiting room while my car was in the shop. Two other customers were willing to engage in some friendly chat as we waited. The man wore a Mission Badge and explained how he was getting his car serviced before they left for their mission to New Zealand. He and his wife were called as medical support for the missionaries in that region. The lady next to me had a cute small dog with her. She spent most of the time hoping the dog would be well behaved as we all waited.

The man asked questions about me and as sometimes happens, I mentioned that I served my mission as part of the Tabernacle Choir. As we chatted, we shared stories about how we loved music. He had played flute in the Mormon Youth Symphony for 17 years, even during his time in Med School. We shared about kids and grandkids and how being grandparents is a full-time gig. In the process I told him about how I write Choral Music as well as Children's Theater. He even asked for my web-site to send to his daughter who helps with the school plays in her kid's school. Then his car was ready and he left.

Suddenly, the lady next to me asked, "Are you famous?"

I said, "No, not at all."

Then she said, "You look so familiar. I wonder how I would know your face?"

She asked if she would have known me from watching Music and the Spoken Word. I said probably not because I sat in a place that got very little camera time. Then I had to explain how the cameramen planned their shots for TV.

Then her car was ready and she left. So random. You never know how conversations will go with friendly strangers.

Messiah Concert Dec. 5th and 6th

That interchange got me thinking about those wonderful times singing with the Tabernacle Choir, especially when we recorded the entire oratorio of Handel's Messiah. We worked long and hard to have it memorized for our performances and recording.

So now, I am singing with the Wasatch Master Chorale of Provo, Utah, in a performance of Handel's Messiah along with the Timpanogos Symphony Orchestra led by Dr. Douglas Pew.

I have to admit that having the choruses we are singing memorized makes singing less stressful, even if we are singing at very fast tempi.

For some Christmas joy, please come to our performances this weekend DEC. 5-6th 7:30 pm at the Orem High School Auditorium.

Road Maps

11/25/2025

When I was growing up, our family took a lot of road trips. We even had a few major moves to different towns in different states. Our dad would take the family out in each new area to "get lost." Then he would hand one of us a paper map and say, "It's your turn to get us back home." We learned a lot of things using maps. The most important was to have confidence in the integrity of our maps and also our own map reading skills.

My husband and I tried to help our children learn those skills as well. We took a lot of trips cross country back to Utah to visit the grandparents and cousins. So we had a lot of opportunities to practice those map-reading skills. Nowadays, we hardly think about consulting a physical paper map (they don't even sell them anymore!) because we all have smart phones and GPS.

Yesterday my daughter told me of her experience getting lost in Connecticut at night after their phones ran out of battery. They tried to buy a charger for their phones, but it was quite inferior. Besides, where they were in Connecticut, road signs were basically non-existent. They ended up getting some directions from people in an Emergency Room at a Hospital. What my daughter said helped her the most though was recognizing how to follow the mile markers on the sides of the roads. She had a way to judge where they were even without road signs. She called to thank me for teaching our family how to read maps and follow road signs and markers.

Reading MUSIC NOTATION is a lot like reading a road map. The markings and notes on the staff are ways to remember how the music should be played. Even though ways of notating music have changed a lot over the years, if you can read the "map" you can still play or sing the music. The more you PRACTICE the better your skills. After some time, you can even notate music with just a few abbreviations. Such as a chord chart for the well-known Christmas song:

Jingle Bells chords in the key of G

Chorus:
(G)Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the (G7)way,
(C)Oh what fun it (G)is to ride in a (A7)one-horse open (D7)sleigh, hey,
(G)Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the (G7)way,
(C)Oh what fun it (G)is to ride in a (D7)one-horse open (G)sleigh

I have been going through vast quantities of music in my files trying to get rid of stuff I don't use. I came across whole programs I directed or accompanied that used many abbreviations. That means I knew the songs well enough that I really only needed the words, chord symbols, and the "road map" of when to start the intro during the narration, how many verses or choruses, interludes, tag ending, and so forth. (Unfortunately, now I don't remember all those songs or what exactly I played for all of those abbreviations, so now those charts are in the trash.)

I am thankful for good maps for roads and music that give us more reliable information to get us where we need to go. Hurray for people who make this possible for us as we travel the roads through life.

Happy Thanksgiving! (By the way, did you know that "Jingle Bells is really a Thanksgiving song?) Enjoy Jingle Bells 2-Part Children and "Jingle Bells" SATB with piano

Can There Ever Be Too Much Music?

11/21/2025

During my basement renovation, everything that had been in my basement was packed into boxes and moved out to my garage. That means that much of the physical sheet music I own has been unavailable for more than a year. I have boxes and boxes and files and files of sheet music. And now I am trying to go through and eliminate some that I really don't need anymore.

But how do you part with what you worked on so diligently in the past?

Going through these boxes and files has only made me realize how old I am now. As I look back on some of these titles, I have to decide whether they would be useful for any future generations. I have packets and packets of choral titles that I have stored and saved for future choirs I may or may not ever have the opportunity to direct. Then I realized how some titles have had their day in the sun, and may be seen now as too old and outdated. (Some were popular 20 or 30 years ago, but are not considered "classics" now by any means.)

Then again, who is to say what may become popular again. Look at current fashions --- bell bottoms, platform shoes, and miniskirts are very reminiscent of trends from 40 years ago.

The Wasatch Chorale, Provo Utah

Last weekend, the Wasatch Chorale sang a concert where, for this organization's 50th anniversary, they invited 5 former directors to come back. Each conductor pulled three of their favorite pieces that they used during their time leading our chorale. Some of these pieces were from decades past and not necessarily popular today. However, some were definitely classics --- Haydn, Mozart, Randall Thompson, Mack Wilberg, Moses Hogan, John Rutter, etc.

So what makes a song a classic and why does it return to popularity again and again?

Over the years, I have made so many quick arrangements for students and choirs that I never notated properly to eventually publish them. They are in my quick messy handwriting on manuscript paper. Yet they have survived in my files. Do I save them? They may or may not be available to offer for legal publication. Does that make them illegal? Do I get rid of them before I get arrested? (What becomes of my little pencilled in changes to the originals?)

And what about old photocopies of copyrighted works --- even just for reference sake? Should I dispose of them? (Well, the answer is probably "yes" to that one.) It may be time to trust that data bases and publishing houses online will have anything I could need -- past, present, and future and I could obtain music legally from them as desired. (But not my ideas...)

Mary Had a Pretty Little Baby published by Jackman Music

Then again, during this time of purging, I was reminded of a piece I wrote a very long time ago. It came from somewhere, but I don't know where. It was just a song my mother taught me and my sister when were were children. I liked it so much, that my 12-year-old self made an original arrangement of it. (My mother hardly bothered to write anything down. She just played from memory. And this was not her arrangement.)

In Middle School, I showed my arrangement of "Mary Had a Pretty Little Baby" for SA and Piano to my chorus teacher. She liked it so much, that she allowed the girls of the choir to sing it for the Christmas Concert. Since then, I have used it on many concerts, even for Elementary School choruses.

When I gave it to the publisher (much later), he thought that it may have come from an old African Christmas carol. Perhaps. We will likely never know. Enjoy my daughter Camilyn Bailey (Workman) singing both parts.

Standing on the Shoulders of Giants

11/11/2025

Last night I went to a lecture presented by the creators of "The Roots of Knowledge" stained glass installation at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah. Tom and Gail Holdman and the artists at the Holdman Studios have created a breathtaking creation that is both beautiful and educational. Well worth visiting if you are ever in Utah!

The stained glass panels take up about 200 feet of the gallery in the Library on UVU campus. The artists Tom Holden and his wife Gail gave an informative tour of how they went from concept after 12 years to completion of this magnificent work of art. I am so glad I got to hear their story of each of the panels and what they tried to depict.

One panel that really impressed me was of a giant with a tiny Issac Newton standing on his shoulder. The idea was to illustrate how he said that everything he had done was because he was building upon the work of those who came before him. And all that we do and enjoy is because of what has been accomplished by those who came before us. And the message in the end panel is that hope in the future for those who will come after us and continue to build.

Another panel illustrated how the printing press allowed music to go from the precious and rare manuscripts scribed by monks to Masterworks created by the Master Composers and disseminated throughout the world.

Indeed we modern composers and performers have great respect for the work that was done before our time. We stand in awe of the technology that allows us to be able to create music nowadays that can be instantly downloaded and enjoyed by others.

We also revere the first musicians who created the systems of writing music. Some of the first notated music was for early Church services. Gregorian chants were probably sung for years and passed on through aural memory. Finally one of the monks created a system of staff lines and spaces to notate how the pitches moved up and down in the melodies. Then came the movable "Do Re Mi" solfege systems, and on and on. We musicians really do stand on the shoulders of giants!

One favorite Christmas piece is "O Come, O Come Emmanuel." The music is derived from an ancient chant. VENI IMMANUEL was originally music for a Requiem Mass in a fifteenth-century French Franciscan Processional. Composers and performers today may thank John Mason Neale (1818–1866) for his first English translation. Other writers have modified the text over the years.

This arrangement was commissioned for a church choir that wanted to sing mostly in 2-part mixed chorus with piano and cello accompaniment. They wanted to honor the tradition of early chant music. "O Come, O Come Emmanuel" SATB, piano, and cello.

Of Mouthpieces and Embouchures

11/8/2025

Mouthpieces for various brass instruments

Mouthpieces and embouchures are not what I usually think about in my day to day life. (Embouchure is how the player uses his lips to play an instrument.) But, I went to visit my brother the other day.

Probably the first thing you'd notice walking into my bother's house is how his many mouthpieces for various brass instruments are displayed as decorations. Well, maybe not really as decorations because he uses them all the time, but they are on display just the same. His wife doesn't actually like all the tubas in graduated sizes sitting out all the time in the living room (so she makes him store those away), but she tolerates the mouthpieces.

Tuba family collection

Talking to Ben Lee invariably includes lessons in the makes, manufacture and ways to play brass instruments. He has quite a collection of members of the tuba family (his specialty).

He even tells me about the differences in pistons and rotary valves. But mostly he talks about playing his favorite masterworks and which instruments and mouthpieces he'd use for each.

Who knew that you needed different instruments in different keys to be able to play pieces by the great master composers? (My mind was blown!)

Last night I went to hear a Baroque Chamber group play three of Bach's Brandenburg Concertos. My nephew Dr. Randy Lee played piccolo trumpet on two of them. The virtuosity of the solo instrument performers was stunning. Speaking of embouchures, Randy said that his part was so high and so fast that he nearly gave up towards the end of the last piece. (I saw him massaging his lips a lot after his performance!)

Sometimes I really get into a Baroque music mood. Right now, the choir I sing with is preparing to sing Handel's Messiah for Christmas. This type of music is so expressive and shows such variations in emotion. Everything from abject agony to exultant praise and joy. I love it!

Occasionally I feel inspired to write something of my own in Baroque style. Here is the scriptural text from Matthew 11:28-30 set for SATB and Piano. "Come Unto Him" also scored for woodwind quintet with harp.

Setting Up for the Wrong Holiday

10/31/2025

"It's Halloween again. We're all a year older." That is a favorite line spoken by the maid in "Meet Me in Saint Louis." My sister suggested that we watch that movie from the 1940's as we hand out candy to the Trick-or-Treaters tonight for Halloween. That movie shows a family living through all the holidays, even Halloween, during the year 1903. Though their depiction of Halloween is quite different from what we experience nowadays, it's still pretty fun to watch. We don't get a lot of kids coming by my house, so we need to have something else to keep us entertained tonight.

Friends and Family Halloween circa 1988

Listening to my sister and giving in to her ideas has been a hobby of mine, you might say. A few years back, I listened to her and ended up spending my Halloween holiday setting up for Christmas. It was 2020 and we were in the middle of COVID19 restrictions, so we had to keep to our family pods. But an interesting opportunity came up and she encouraged me to jump on it.

My sister found out about how to submit a video for a Virtual Christmas Concert sponsored by Temple Square Performances. She got excited and approached me saying, "They are looking especially for composers to submit their original Christmas songs. Who knows, someone out there might have the next 'Silent Night' or 'It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas' and just needs a way to get it heard! Let's round up our family and record one of your songs! They also said that groups are given priority over soloists."

Anyway, my sister and I brainstormed about what we could do to learn, rehearse, record and create a video using our family in three short weeks! We decided that we would just use family members living close by who are descendants of our parents, Tom and Carolyn Lee - The Lee Family Singers. We planned to feature our little children in a Nativity Pageant tableau. Just the older kids and adults sang and played instruments.

Family Christmas morning circa 1993

So for Halloween, the locals of my big extended family, packed into my family room and were filmed lip-syncing to our recording of "On a Sacred, Still and Silent Night" SATB with Violin with some of the young kids and grandkids acting out a Nativity Pageant. Seemed a very strange way to celebrate Halloween, but nobody grumbled, after all they got to dress up in costumes.

I don't know if our video was used in the Virtual Christmas Concert on Temple Square. But it was a lot of fun to get together and sing, especially since having so many restrictions about gathering in 2020. What a way to celebrate Halloween.

Here are the two runner-up songs we could have made videos singing, but we went with the one completely original song. "O Tidings of Comfort and Joy" SATB, "A Christmas Carol" SSATBB

Hymns for Thanksgiving

10/27/2025

Church choirs throughout America are probably busily learning some songs of praise and thanksgiving to honor this season of the year. I was born on Thanksgiving Day, so it has always been my favorite holiday. (In fact, I always have pumpkin pie instead of birthday cake to celebrate.) There are many beautiful praise hymns and songs about giving thanks, but one year I stumbled on a great hymn text that I felt needed a new setting.

W.W. Phelps 1792-1872

One of the most hopeful, praising, thankful texts I have ever found is "Come All Ye Saints Who Dwell on Earth" by W.W. Phelps. The words are gorgeous and speak of someday meeting in the celestial choirs to sing His praises above. (That's surely where I want to be!)

In the 1985 L.D.S. hymnal, this upbeat, cheerful text is paired with a very plodding hymn tune in duple meter. Now, anyone who reads the text separately from the music will instantly see that the meter needs to be in triple. Besides that, the melodic phrases don't match the imagery in the text. So, I decided to write a 3/4 time melody for this text and make sure it supported the word painting.

A few years ago, my home ward choir sang this piece, in the SSATB version. We have an unusual choir because we have many fine singers in every section, plus several renown music professors, instrumentalists, composers, solo singers, and choir conductors. (Living close to BYU campus does have its perks.) The performance went well, and I was pleased. (What a nice Birthday present to me!)

The program listed not only the song title, but had my name credited as the composer. So after the meeting, many people came up to me and gave such ecstatic comments about our performance. Most of them said things like, "I recognized the text, remembering that it was in our hymnal, but I didn't recognize the melody." One man said, "I had to look in the hymn book just to make sure! Wow! Then I realized that you had put that text to a whole new melody. That hymn really needed a facelift and you did it! The words came alive! Well done."

Later in the evening the sweetest thing happened. About 25 of us were gathered for a noisy family birthday celebration dinner in my house, when unexpectedly, the doorbell rang. A bunch of kids ran to answer it, so I went too. A neighbor and two of his sons (ages 13 and 10) were standing there holding out a plate of cookies. One of the boys said, "We really liked your song today in Church, so we made you some cookies. Thank you. That really made our Sunday."

I don't think I have ever had a more tender and sincere compliment from young boys! I was really touched.

Enjoy "Come All Ye Saints Who Dwell on Earth" SSATB or "Come All Ye Saints Who Dwell on Earth" SSAA

Looking forward to a Happy Thanksgiving!

Special Arrangement for Special Friends

10/19/2025

For several years I was privileged to teach voice lessons to five sisters, Alyson, Jessica, Nataly, Kelli, and Monica Bullock. They were talented musicians and had good voices. Their mother taught violin in the Suzuki method, and most of the girls were learning to play violin, as well learning to sing. Part of the joy of teaching these girls individually was also having them learn to sing with each other. We practiced duets and trios, but it was hard to find songs for five equal treble parts.

Their mother approached me with an idea. She wanted them to record an album for the grandparents for Christmas. Mary browsed the online music stores and came up with many songs for her girls to sing. Each would have a solo, and then they would sing the other songs in various combinations of voices -- duet, trio, quartet, and other.

She trusted me to play the piano parts and do the recording engineering, too. Some of the songs were upbeat and the octavos had ideas scored for piano, bass, drums and a color instrument or two. So, I knuckled down and created some accompaniments they could use for their album. It was an ambitious project, and I was very pleased with the Bullock girl's efforts, if I do say so myself.

One song that they sang was a version of "On a Sacred Still and Silent Night" that I rewrote for SSAA, piano and violin. I couldn't leave out a violin part for their mother Mary! (The violin part turned out so well that now I have it available for the SSATB version, too.)

It thrills me every year when I receive notice that the SSATB and the SSAA versions of my 3-hour Christmas song are sold. It is still hard for me to believe that a song that was born while I was waiting at a red light on a cold, grey December day in Maryland and was finished a mere 3 hours later. I am pleased that it can be sung now for Christmas all over the place.

In 2020, during the COVID restrictions, my extended family in Utah created this video of "On a Sacred, Still and Silent Night" SSATB, with Piano and Violin, also with Matt Bailey playing guitar.

Music with a Life of Its Own

10/14/2025

One of my favorite musical scores is "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" by Alan Mencken and Steven Sondheim. The story is quite dark, too dark for small children, although the Disney animators tried very hard to put in humorous sequences and characters to lighten the mood. Still, the riddle "who is the monster and who is the man?" and looking forward through the darkness to "the new millennium when things will be brighter someday" are not the normal light, jovial themes for young children's entertainment.

The musical score is chocked full of memorable tunes in a variety of styles, everything from medieval Latin Requiem chant to music hall soft shoe. The vocal talent used for this movie is incredible. Some of the songs are a vocal tour de force and take special singers with extraordinary ranges to pull off a performance. Yet many of the songs are catchy and fun for anyone to sing.

It has become a trend that at the end of every Alan Mencken Disney musical, that one song will be sung as exit music done by pop singers in their particular style. (Quite a departure from the style in the original context of the movie.) And that reminds me of something I was advised about long ago.

Publishing your music means giving it away.

One of my mentors said this to me years ago. I didn't really believe him then. At that point in time, I had not written very many songs and I had not had anything published as yet. I had supposed what he meant was that the music publishing business was not very lucrative. Whereas, that statement is probably true, I think he had a different meaning in mind. He wanted to warn me that sometimes a song will take on a life of its own.

Composers tend to think that what they write down is how a piece of music will be used and performed forevermore. (After all, they take great care to include all the intended notes, AND also performance directions using dynamic, tempo, and expression marks.) That, it turns out, is a very naive notion.

First of all, composers tend to write for a certain occasion and set of performers. They imagine in their minds the end product as they are writing. Well, in reality, the end product will always be subject to the talent and proficiencies of the performers. The performers may execute the notes according to the score, but the they will also add their own interpretations. They may also have a completely different idea about how it should be performed!

For example, TEMPO makes a big difference! A song the composer intended to be performed upbeat, will have a completely different flavor if performed at a slower tempo. The mood may go from "charged with excitement" to "peaceful and quiet" like a lullaby.

Then, there are experiments with RHYTHM and BEAT. A song can become something completely different when the melody and chord progression is played against a Latin or Rock beat, or changed to Waltz time.

INSTRUMENTATION can also change the entire song. The composer who wrote for a large choir with orchestra may be shocked to hear his song performed by just a soloist and guitar. He may also be delighted.

As a COMPOSER, I have been surprised and mostly delighted when I hear how my songs are being used. Surprised at how widespread across the world they have been performed. Delighted to hear of and sometimes get to visit a school or Church when my music is being performed or watch a cover on a YouTube video..

There have been times, though, when I scratch my head and wonder how the performers came up with their unique interpretations. That's when I remember what my mentor told me that "publishing your music means giving it away."

It is TRUE! Sometimes a song will take on a life of its own.

"King of Kings" SATB with Soloists is an original Christmas song that has been sung by soloists and choirs around the globe. It definitely has taken on a life of it's own!

"King of Kings" Duet for Soprano and Baritone

The Music of Betsy Lee Bailey copyright 2020