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| | Fast - Find the right music faster by comping tracks with your video online |
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DownloadRoyalty Free Christmas Music
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Music for Christmas
Christmas can be a magical time; families get together; there's food, drink, gifts, and an all together merry atmosphere.
But, it's more than that, there is something indescribable that makes it feel like Christmas.
That same indescribable feeling applies to the best Christmas music, too.
When you hear a Christmas song, more often than not, you know it's a Christmas song, whether it has lyrics or not.
You might not know why, but it just feels like a Christmas song.
While we can't give you an exact formula, we can give you a bit of theory for the music nerds amongst you.
Modal Interchange
The particular key that a song is in has diatonic chords that fit perfectly within that scale.
Don't worry; it's not as complicated as it might sound.
What that means is that you build a chord (triad) on each step of the scale, only using notes that exist in that scale.
That's a basic explanation, but if we take the key of C major, there are seven diatonic chords.
C, Dmin, Emin, F, G, Amin, Bdim, and back to C
Sometimes to spice things up a little, it's good to use non-diatonic chords, and that's where modal interchange comes in.
Modal interchange is when you borrow chords from the parallel key while maintaining the same tonal center (root).
If you are in the key of C major, the parallel key is C minor.
Christmas songs utilize modal interchange often, especially ballads.
The Christmas Chord
The reason we went on that music theory rant was to lead you here, to the Christmas chord.
It's not really a magic Christmas chord, but it pops up in countless Christmas songs that use modal interchange just to fit it in.
Again, in C major, the diatonic second chord of the scale would be Dmin7.
Substituting it for the second diatonic chord from C minor instead gives you Dmin7 flat5.
So, only one note in the chord has changed, the flat 5th, but the difference is huge.
The flat 5th gives the chord a diminished quality and adds so much warmth.
Think of the line I'm dreaming of a white Christmas.
You know that warm, fuzzy feeling when the word white lands, that's the Christmas chord.
Variety is Everything
The wonderful thing about Christmas music is that it can adapt to so many scenarios without losing that Christmassy warmth.
In looking at some of the best Christmas movies of all time, you'd see films that deal with a range of themes from romance to action or even grief.
Explaining how Christmas music deals with so many emotions effortlessly, takes us back to that indescribable magic.
Rather than only making you feel a certain way, it tends to enhance the emotion suggested by the video.
However, even if dealing with profound sadness, the best Christmas music does so with an underlying feeling of hope and optimism.
That's the warmth, the Christmas magic, and if you don't feel it, you've got the wrong music.
Luckily, we have plenty of the right music in our royalty-free music library.