Help me find Trad Christmas tunes

Doc Jones · Post by **Doc Jones** » Fri Oct 17, 2003 7:17 am

Hi Gang,

My family has a lot of musicians and we do a fair bit of performing. We recently got asked to do a Christmas gig.

I have always loved the old traditional Christmas songs...not the Santa Claus stuff but the really old tunes. Stuff you would hear in the background of an old Charles Dickens movie. You know, things that would sound good with whistles and fiddles and flutes etc...

Any recommendations would be appreciated.

Thanks much,

Doc

BTW, I would particularly like to learn some old Welsh holiday tunes.

Father Emmet · Post by **Father Emmet** » Fri Oct 17, 2003 7:22 am

Try the Wandering Whistler Music Archive. It should be in this sites links page. He's got tunes arrainged by category.

Jayhawk · Post by **Jayhawk** » Fri Oct 17, 2003 8:20 am

The Chieftains have a great Christmas CD out there - possibly titled the Bells of Dublin - which has some great tunes you could learn. I'm not sure if there are ABCs out there for some of the tunes, but it's worth a shot. This is my all-time favorite Christmas album.

Eric

Redwolf · Post by **Redwolf** » Fri Oct 17, 2003 8:29 am

Mercy...I play bunches of them, but none of them are written down. Perhaps you can find them on the web, either in ABC format or in notation. Some that would go well would be:

God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen
Good Christian Men Rejoice (In Dulci Jubilo)
Blessed be that Maide Marie
Adam Lay y Bounden
I Saw Three Ships Come Sailing In
The Holy and the Ivy
The Sussex Carol
The Sans Day Carol
The Boars Head Carol (perhaps a bit boring as a pure instrumental)
Here We Come a Wassailing
I Wonder as I Wander (not Dickensian, but a good instrumental)
Silent Night
O Holy Night
Greensleeves/What Child is This?
Joy to the World
By the Father's Love Begotten (plainchant)

There are a lot more...I'll have to pull out my old list from last year (I had a list of all the carols I knew and the starting note for each). But that's enough to get started with, at least.

Redwolf

Redwolf · Post by **Redwolf** » Fri Oct 17, 2003 9:39 am

Another one that works well is "O Little Town of Bethlehem" (particularly the "Forest Green" setting).

Redwolf

DCrom · Post by **DCrom** » Fri Oct 17, 2003 10:33 am

There's a good one in the Clarke tutorial. Can't think of the proper Gaelic name - "Og' something Bethel", I think - it was translated as "That Night in Bethlehem".

Are you playing this on whistle, keyless flute, or ??? Because I believe some of the pieces mentioned (Greensleeves, for sure) will need cross-fingered/half-holed accidentals. Some of them are probably better on a keyed flute or recorder.

Redwolf · Post by **Redwolf** » Fri Oct 17, 2003 10:41 am

Greensleeves the way I play it on the whistle only requires one accidental...a half-holed G. It's an easy one.

Redwolf

DCrom · Post by **DCrom** » Fri Oct 17, 2003 11:43 am

Redwolf wrote:Greensleeves the way I play it on the whistle only requires one accidental...a half-holed G. It's an easy one.

Redwolf

It's do-able - it's just that I first learned this tune on the recorder and there are perfectly good non-half-holed fingerings there

Also, IMHO, this is a tune that sounds perfectly at home on recorder. I still prefer whistle, most of the time - but except for half-holed C-nats and D-sharps I think accidentals are easier on recorder. (Though if you're playing a low whistle the half-holing gets a lot easier)

Redwolf · Post by **Redwolf** » Fri Oct 17, 2003 2:38 pm

Ooo! Ooo! I just thought of another that works well on the whistle! "Angels from the Realm of Glory" ("Angels We Have Heard on High"). Oh, and "Away in a Manger"...all three commonly used tunes work well on the whistle, and I actually like to do a medly of all three.

Redwolf

Blarney Pilgrim · Post by **Blarney Pilgrim** » Fri Oct 17, 2003 2:53 pm

Some great ones already mentioned. Here are some more:

O Come O Come Emmanuel
Once in Royal David's City
We Three Kings
Bring a Torch Jeannette Isabella
King Holly King Oak
It Came Upon a Midnight Clear
The Fist Noel
In the Bleak Midwinter
We Wish You a Merry Christmas

If you can get your hands on almost any hymnal, you'll find some of these. And there is a website called the Cyber Hymnal. I forget the URL, but a web search should find it.

Steve

Redwolf · Post by **Redwolf** » Fri Oct 17, 2003 2:56 pm

Ooo yes! And your mention of "Un Flambeau, Jeannette, Isabella" reminded me of "Patapan", which is particularly effective with just the whistle and a drum.

The Oxford Book of Carols is also a wonderful resource.

Here is the link for Cyber Hymnal. There also used to be a wonderful Anglican Cyber Hymnal, but it seems to have gone belly up:

http://www.cyberhymnal.org/

Redwolf

Redwolf · Post by **Redwolf** » Fri Oct 17, 2003 3:01 pm

Oops! I thought the Anglican Cyber Hymnal ("Oremus") had gone belly up, but it looks like it just changed URLs. Here's the link:

http://www.oremus.org/hymnal/

I like this one because it will show you a score, and if you have Scorch, you can print the scores. It also allows you to transpose the music into various keys.

Redwolf

Doc Jones · Post by **Doc Jones** » Fri Oct 17, 2003 5:00 pm

DCrom wrote:Are you playing this on whistle, keyless flute, or ??? Because I believe some of the pieces mentioned (Greensleeves, for sure) will need cross-fingered/half-holed accidentals. Some of them are probably better on a keyed flute or recorder.

No worries, we have bass, piano, fiddles, mandolin, guitars, whistles, recorders, Boehm flutes, keyless flutes, harmonicas and recorders.

There are 13 kids plus the Mrs. and me. Eleven of the kids are old enough to play and most of them play more than one instrument.

We ain't scared of accidentals bring it on!

Doc

LeeMarsh · Post by **LeeMarsh** » Sat Oct 18, 2003 12:27 am

Christmas Carols are songs many folks know by heart. I makes them easy to pick up on whistle, since you already know the melody. The hard part for me was finding a key and the beginning few notes. I created this cheat sheet 2 years ago. It gives you the name, key, and first few notes of several carols that work well on whistle. I know it's early but thought folks might like to see it again. For us ssslllooowww learners it will give us enough practice time to get them down before the season starts in a few weeks.

If you'd like to down load the sheet, here is a link for my <a href=http://w3.mivlmd.cablespeed.com/~leemar ... >Christmas Carol Cheat Sheet</a>.

boj9 · Post by **boj9** » Mon Oct 20, 2003 9:03 am

Virtual sheet music has about 8 different settings for Silent Night in their free download section:

http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/downlo ... dFree.html

They are rated very easy. The one for Brass quartet might work.

bye
bill