Making Music with Jake Haws

For more Christmas music, visit: https://jakehaws.bandcamp.com/album/christmas-songs

Every year, I have a tradition of recording Christmas music with my family. Some years, we’ve only done one song and other years it’s been as many as five. This year we were able to do two song.

The first one is a techno version of "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer." Each of my 3 kids sang on it and I used the Auto-Tune plugin on their voices, which is the first time I've ever used it. This was a little out of my comfort zone with production style but it was fun to push myself to try new sounds.

The second song is a bossa nova style arrangement of "Feliz Navidad." I used a nylon string classical guitar that my wife bought for my birthday earlier this year. I also used a drum beat sample, a shaker, wood block, and bass. For the singing, everyone in my family traded off lines. We started oldest to youngest, so it began with my wife, Melissa (who is a month older then me), then I sang, then the rest of our 3 kids. Then, we all joined in together at the end.