BERNARDSTON — Year after year as Christmas Day ushered in the same collection of tried-and-true holiday tunes, Whately resident Steve Calderone began to wonder if there was a new way to put a twist on original music.
His idea? Calderone trademarked the term “Christmas Counterpoint,” to cover the process whereby he transforms traditional songs into either echo songs (where the same song is delayed a measure later), partner songs (where two different songs with similar rhythms are played together), or both.
“We do them the way the song’s already been written, we just do two at once,” Calderone said of the partner songs.
To demonstrate his arrangement of echo and partner songs, Calderone is organizing a Christmas concert called “Holiday Favorites (squared),” to be held on April Fool’s Day, Saturday, from 7 to 10 p.m. at the United Church of Bernardston.
Calderone, who often plays percussion at the United Church of Bernardston, presented his idea to the Head of Christian Education Steve Damon and the Rev. David Neil, both of whom thought the concert would be great fun for the community.
“Steve’s arrangements are really clever and a lot of fun,” Neil said. “It’s just something a little bit out of the ordinary.”
Calderone, who has published four books of Christmas music including “A Cool Yule: Ten Jazzy Christmas Songs,” said Christmas songs have a tendency to lose people’s attention, as they’ve been heard so regularly.
“Every high school, college, church director says in September ‘This is what we’ll play at the Christmas concert,’” Calderone said, adding that people tend to “tune out” the music. “This type of thing will hopefully change that and make people more interested in the messages and the fun of the music, without taking away the tradition.”
Combining two songs into one, though, is not as simple as it sounds, Calderone said.
“They happen to harmonize,” he explained. “What’s tricky is the song has to start at the same place and end at the same place … It doesn’t work with just any two songs.”
For the concert, Calderone was able to gather together a group called Harmonic Conspiracy, which consists of nine singers — including Neil — from the United Church of Bernardston choir and the Ja’Duke Center for the Performing Arts. Calderone will act as emcee over what he expects will be a fun community event.
“It should be fun because it’s stuff that everybody knows, but in a way they’ve never heard it before,” he said. “To find something new in Christmas these days is kind of hard to do … People will find it amusingly intriguing.”
Calderone plans to put a video of the event on YouTube in hopes that others will begin to make Christmas echo and partner songs too, and in turn, share their videos.
“It would be nice if people catch on, and next year there are five YouTube videos, and the next year there will be 20,” Calderone said. “We’ll see what social media can do.”
For more information about the concert, visit the event’s Facebook page at bit.ly/2nxZfBb.