Review: Wicked Keys Christmas
With 15 popular carols in a variety of arrangements, this collection has a lot to offer, especially for group classes
About Wicked Keys
Wicked Keys is a series of three books by Australian keyboardist James Baker that focuses on contemporary styles—specifically a blend of rock, pop and jazz—with chords at the centre.
Besides Lead Sheet 101, a method book for lead sheets that I really like, there’s Wicked Keys Folk Songs and Wicked Keys Christmas, plus two more forthcoming books.
Digital and physical
Wicked Keys Christmas is available as a digital download as a single or studio license, plus as a coil-bound physical book (pictured above) via Lulu, a print-on-demand service.
Confusingly, the physical book is currently listed as out of stock on the Wicked Keys website, but it is actually still available via the Lulu website using the link above.
The digital download is reasonably priced, with the studio license (£53) costing a little more than triple the cost of the single license (£16).
What’s inside
Reading the cover, you might think that it includes there are 50 different Christmas carols.
Actually there are 15 different carols, each presented in three or four different ways. For example “Silent Night” is featured in four different formats:
Elementary lead sheet with simple chords
Intermediate lead sheet with more complex chords, including major and minor 7ths, inversions, suspensions, augmented chords and flat 9s
Fully notated easy piano arrangement with chord symbols
Fully notated easy duet accompaniment with chord symbols plus a staff for the vocals
This is therefore an extremely flexible book that could be used in a wide variety of contexts. It would be particularly suitable for group keyboard lessons, or in teaching studios where there are opportunities for collaborative playing with singers and other instrumentalists.
The carols are presented in keys of up to 1 sharp or flat. The fully notated arrangements are really simple, ranging between about UK Grade 1-2 level; the easy duet accompaniments are more like UK Grades 2-3. Fingerings are not included.
Simple arrangements? That’s the point
At times the arrangements are a bit uninteresting, but that’s actually a deliberate pedagogical choice. Quoting the introduction:
You’ll notice that we have chords in all our charts: that’s because contemporary playing is all about improvisation and interpretation as opposed to “playing the dots”. All of the written arrangements should be taken as a rough guide — the freedom to interpret is at the heart of Wicked Keys.
As such it is useful to think of the arrangements as more of a “how to get started” prompt than a finished score.
Backing tracks
Unlike the other books I’m reviewing, Wicked Keys Christmas includes backing tracks in various versions:
Band Tracks with drums, bass, keyboard and optional melody
Piano Tracks with optional melody
Contents
The carols included are:
Angels We Have Heard on High
Away In A Manger (Kirkpatrick version) — extra intermediate lead sheet included
Away In A Manger (Mueller version) — extra intermediate lead sheet included
Deck The Halls
The First Nöel — extra intermediate lead sheet included
Good King Wenceslas
Hark the Herald Angels
Jingle Bells
O Come All Ye Faithful — extra intermediate lead sheet included
Joy To The World
Oh Christmas Tree
O Holy Night
Silent Night — extra intermediate lead sheet included
We Three Kings
We Wish You A Merry Christmas
This list includes many of the classics, but inevitably skips a few. I miss “In The Bleak Midwinter” and “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen”, to give a couple of examples.
Conclusion
I really like this book and if I taught groups, I think I’d use it throughout the Christmas period.
It would really suit mixed-ability classes: you could give the lead sheet to beginner keyboardists, who could play either the melody or chords, while giving the duet arrangement to late-elementary players. If you were working with more advanced players, the 5 intermediate lead sheets could form the basis of an interesting group or solo project.
More creative Christmas books coming soon
This is the second in a series of reviews of creative Christmas books. More tomorrow! In the meantime, here’s the other review:
