Ryan Musique's

Winter is on My Head Vol. 1


Winter is on My Head Vol. 1 by Ryan Musique
I arranged this Christmas song for my friend Tim Bauer's annual Christmas Compilation, Winter Is On My Head. It's a great yearly publication and the proceeds go to a great cause. Check it out at Winter Is On My Head

Music


  1. Angels From The Realms Of Glory (03:26)

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Credits & Notes


Lyrics written by James Montgomery
Music written by Henry Smart
Arrangement by Ryan Medina

Instruments

Ryan Medina - Everything
Van Medina - Background vocals

Technical

Produced by Ryan Medina
Ryan Medina - Recording Engineer
Recorded at IC Musique, Orange County, CA
Mixed & Mastered by Ryan Medina


2. Angels From The Realms Of Glory


Lyrics

Angels from the realms of glory
Wing your flight o'er all the earth
Ye who sang creation's story
Now proclaim Messiah's birth
Come and worship
Come and worship
Worship Christ the newborn King

Shepherds in the fields abiding
Watching o'er your flocks by night
God with man is now residing
Yonder shines the infant Light
Come and worship
Come and worship
Worship Christ the newborn King
Sages leave your contemplations
Brighter visions beam afar
Seek the great desire of nations
Ye have seen His natal star
Come and worship
Come and worship
Worship Christ the newborn King


Notes

Initially I was interested in covering a different Christmas hymn, which turned out to be beautifully arranged by another artist on this album. This actually turned out well, because it forced me into doing a bit more Christmas hymn/song investigation. During my search I stumbled across an old hymn, Angels from the Realms of Glory, which I somewhat remembered from years past. Immediately the lyrics touched me and while listening to the melody, the song captured me. The lyrics have such beautiful imagery and richness. A few lines that initially struck me are, "Ye who sang creation's story, Now proclaim Messiah's birth" and "God with man is now residing, Yonder shines the infant light." Beyond that the chorus is simply "Come and worship, Come and worship, worship Christ the newborn King," which is so simple, yet captures the essence of Christmas so well.

After falling head over heals for Angels from the Realms of Glory the real work began. The task was bringing an old hymn with old language--that is amazing as it is--into our present time musically. This task took the longest by far. The main musical change was a new melody arrangement with different timing. The time change is significant and runs throughout the song; every other measure is either 4/4 or 5/4. This allowed for a significant melody change within the song. Other than that I just added some extra measures and a guitar solo. Once that was finished I got to work. Seeing as how I decided to contribute a song in late October, I only had the option of using myself to do the work. So I locked myself in a room with instruments, microphones, and a computer for two weeks. I'm primarily a guitar player and in that two weeks I pretty much exhausted my musical ability with all the different instrumentation that was used for the final product. Fortunately my Dad was able to help out and sing back-up vocals. It really was an interesting process.

A bit of History

After deciding to take on this song I did a bit of homework and thought I would mention some interesting facts: