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Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas!
Kyle

Popular posts from this blog

The History of Ding Dong! Merrily on High

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Ding Dong! Merrily on High is one of the happiest and most spirited Christmas songs, and like many of the traditional carols that are sung today, it was written hundreds of years ago.  The earliest record we have of the song is from 1588, making it at least 428 years old.  However, the piece originally had nothing to do with Christmas -  it was a standard tune used for French dances.  The melody is written (sideways! - see the image below) on page 92 of a book called Orchesographie by Thoinot Arbeau, which was the pen name of Jehan Tabourot (1519-1595).  His choice of pen name was particularly interesting because it is an anagram of his real name (the same letters were placed in a different order).  A facsimile of Orchesographie can be viewed on the Library of Congress website.   Orchesographie is a very important historical document that provides us with many of the popular melodies of the French Renaissance, and it gives i...
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Christmas Songs for Winds, Brass, and String Instruments

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In my last post, I discussed the “Christmas in July” project to complete the arrangements of twenty nine Christmas carols for woodwinds, brass, and string instruments.  They’re finished!  Since my goal has been to create arrangements that can be played by as many people as possible, a good deal of time and thought was spent determining the best key for each song,  The Christmas wind and brass arrangements are all in the same key so that flute, clarinet, oboe, saxophone. trumpet, trombone, and any other band instruments can play along with each other.  The string arrangements of the Christmas carols are in the same key so that violin, viola, cello, and bass can play together. I have kept beginning and intermediate players in mind, and made the keys as easy as possible, but I realize that it’s difficult to make everybody happy.  Finding a key that puts alto and tenor saxophone, flute, clarinet, and trumpet all in a comfortable key for students is a real c...
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Christmas Sheet Music for Piano Students

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Only one week until Christmas, but that’s plenty of time to learn and play new carols!   As promised in my last post, the newest additions to  Christmas Music Songs  are arrangements for piano .   My goal is to provide several arrangements of each carol so that pianists of all levels can find something they are looking for.   All of these arrangements are available as free, printable PDFs.   As of now, there are three different versions of twenty eight carols, with more arrangements on the way.    The versions are progressively difficult, with arrangements suitable for beginners to more advanced players. Version 1 of each carol features just the melody, written in the treble clef staff.  Beginners or pianists who only want the melody can use these arrangements.  The songs are written within the staff and avoid ledger lines whenever possible.  Most of the songs are in the key of C, G, or F.  Instead of using key signatures,...
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