Christmas Caroling Handouts

It’s been a number of years since the last update, but I finally have a new version of our Ananda Palo Alto Christmas Caroling handouts, for both singers and guitarists. 

I’ve made a number of edits and corrections, and if you’re interested in the details, here’s the change log. But of most interest are the new additions: 

• Hallelujah Chorus
• Infant Holy
• Jesus Christ the Apple Tree
• Noche de Paz (Spanish lyrics for Silent Night)
• See Amid the Winter Snow
• Sing a Song of Bethlehem

You can download all the files together in a zip file here. Or get just the pieces you want: 

• Lyrics-only handout (PDF) for singers. 
• Lyrics with guitar chords (PDF).
• CSV for importing the guitar chords into ForScore as individual files.
• CSV for importing the guitar chords into MobileSheets as individual files.

If you have suggestions for a future edition, or come across any errors, please let me know. I’m always keeping notes for the next update. 

Enjoy!

All the Fiddle Tunes

These were mostly written on—and work well on—the mandolin, but live within the very general category of “fiddle tunes.” A few particular favorites are highlighted. 

Each title links to a PDF of the score. You can also get them all in a single .abc file, if you like that kind of thing. A few have audio recordings as well. 

New Online Harmonium Course

I’ve just recently launched a project I’ve been working on for the last several months: a new online beginner’s harmonium course! Find out all about it at www.HarmoniumChanting.com.

The course includes 5.5 hours of video, 33 pages of PDF handouts, and seven complete chants to learn, with both melodies and chords. Full contents are listed here. And here’s the trailer:

Also on YouTube you can find the first introductory video and a demo video of Door of My Heart in four languages.

Happy chanting!

The Angel Gabriel

 This has always been a favorite Christmas carol of mine, so I made an arrangement of it for our choir. Click for the full PDF. 

I Wonder as I Wander

Dambara always used to sing this song at our Christmas concerts, as a beautiful solo with piano accompaniment. Since he moved away, I guess we haven’t quite been ready to have anyone else try it. But it’s always been a favorite of mine, and I recently had the idea to arrange it for a group of singers, just so we could feel like we’re doing something different and not just trying to follow Dambara’s act. I’m imagining this not so much for full choir as for, say, an octet accompanying a male soloist (though the soprano and bass parts get turns joining on the melody as well).

I haven’t ever done a proper choral arrangement before (and it’s not quite the same as all the music theory exercises I did in college, now that I have more of a stake in how it actually works out). But I had a lot of fun over the past week putting this together. If anyone wants to take a look and share thoughts on it, I’m open to feedback. You can download a PDF of the score here.

I’d love to hear it sung by actual voices, but we haven’t gotten that far yet. (If anyone out there wants to get folks together and try it, please send me a recording!) In the meantime, there’s this computer-generated mp3, which isn’t great, but is something at least.

(And... Christmas songs in August, you ask? Yes. I’m totally starting on Christmas music now, and I’m not ashamed to admit it!)