Recording a Carol at Home

Thankyou for recording yourself or your family singing a carol at home! It will be SO good to have as many people as possible participating in our Christmas Carol Service on 20th December and our Christmas Day Service.

What to Sing

It would be great if we could have as many individuals or couples singing O Come All Ye Faithful all the way through. I would aim to make this into a video like ‘The Blessing’ with everyone in shot at once.

Also, could you, in a family group, as a couple or just yourself if you live alone or others are not willing, sing Away in a Manger.

The words and backing tracks for these carols are at links at the bottom of this page.

Here’s how to do it

You will need 2 devices – phone, tablet, laptop, etc. One will record your image and sound, the other will play the backing track which you will sing along to.

We’ll assume you’re using a phone to record. Here is a link to a shared folder in the HCC office OneDrive. https://huntscc-my.sharepoint.com/:f:/g/personal/admin_huntscc_onmicrosoft_com/Es9j4yIEM5tHpg0HiGopB2MBxZFoCV7aQnmZcP5yQJ9ORA?e=pReeQ9

Click on this link and it should take you to the shared folder (it may take a while to get there). Once in the folder, you will see something like the screen on the right. Click on the ‘+’ sign, click on ‘Take a Photo or Video’, and you will reach your camera. If you now shoot a video, the video file will be put straight in the shared folder and I will be able to pick it up.

Set the camera up so it is horizontal (ie TV style), with the singers in view down to their chest. Ideally it should be at the same level as your head (ie not on a table looking up!)

Put the device playing the backing track close to you, but out of view of the camera.

Compose yourself!!

Start the camera and then start the backing track. It doesn’t matter about the wasted piece of recording at the start or end – I will delete that.

Sing your heart out!

Stop recording.

Click ‘Use video’.

If the above fails, contact me!! The videos will be too big to transfer by WhatsApp. Other possibilities are Dropbox and WeTransfer.

Please get videos back to me by Wednesday 16th December.

Backing Tracks and Carol Words

O Come All Ye Faithful

Away in a Manger

Words for Carols