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The Family Treasury of Classic Christmas Carols

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Stan Kenton Christmas Carols by Boston Brass and the Brass All-Stars Big Band

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Stan Kenton Christmas Carols

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A fully illustrated gift book features more than fifty Christmas recipes, as well as a step-by-step guide to making personal gifts, a selection of classic carols and stories, and a look at the origins of special holiday traditions.

The Whole Christmas Catalogue: The Complete Compendium of Christmas Traditions, Recipes, Crafts, Carols, Lore, and More

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The New York Pro Musica was an Early Music ensemble founded in late 1952 and incorporated in March 1953 as the New York Pro Musica Antiqua. Co-founded by choral director Noah Greenberg and former jazz trombonist and master recorder player Bernard Krainis, the New York Pro Musica Antiqua was originated as a recording ensemble which was combination of Greenberg’s Primavera Singers and Krainis’s Saint Cecilia Players. They made several fine audiophile recordings under the direction of gifted engineer Jerry Newman, a pioneer in the field of stereo sound recording, and began a performing career that lasted over two decades. Recorded in 1953, “English Medieval Christmas Carols” remains a cherished recording for lovers of Early music around the globe. All selections newly remastered.

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English Medieval Carols And Christmas Music

Most of us grew up singing Christmas carols, learning the lyrics to classics such as Jingle Bells or Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, at a very young age. But believe it or not, carols have been sung for thousands of years and didn’t start for the sake of Christmas. They were sang pagans who were celebrating Winter Solstice. Carols were accompanies by celebrations and people dancing around stone circles. This is why the word carol is actually has Greek roots, originally pronounced choraulein, meaning “an ancient circle dance performed to flute music.”

Because the carols became a custom and tradition, early Christians decided to take over the celebrations rather than ban them, changing out the songs for more Christian ones. In AD 129, a Roman Bishop said that a song called ‘Angel’s Hymn’ should be sung at a Christmas service in Rome. Soon many composers all over Europe started to write carols. However, not many people liked them as they were all written and sung in Latin, a language that the normal people couldn’t understand. By the time of the Middles Ages (the 1200s), most people had lost interest in celebrating Christmas altogether.

St. Francis of Assisi changed this in 1223, when he started his Nativity Plays in Italy. The plays included songs or ‘canticles’ that told a story during the play. The songs were typically written in the people’s language which then gave rise to carol’s popularity again among the masses. The earliest carol that was actually written down came out in 1410. Only a very small fragment of it still exists in historic records. The carol was about Mary and Jesus meeting different people in Bethlehem.

Most carols from this time and the Elizabethan period were untrue stories, very loosely based on the Christmas story, about the holy family and were seen as entertaining rather than religious songs. They were usually sung in homes rather than in churches. Traveling singers or Minstrels started singing these carols and the words were changed for the local people wherever they were traveling.

When Oliver Cromwell and the Puritans came to power in England in 1647, the celebration of Christmas and singing carols was stopped. Puritans at that time disapproved as well of the celebration of Christmas, and did not close shop on that day, but continued to work through December 25. However, the carols survived as people still sang them in secret. Those caught singing Christmas carols could be fined five shillings for demonstrating Christmas spirit. Carols remained mainly unsung until Victorian times until 1660 when King Charles II restored the Stuarts to the throne.  The public was once again able to practice the singing of Christmas carols.

Before carol singing in public became popular, there were sometimes official carol singers called ‘Waits’. These were bands of people led by important local leaders (such as council leaders) who had the only power in the towns and villages to take money from the public (If others did this, they were sometimes charged as beggars!). They were called ‘Waits’ because they only sang on Christmas Eve (This was sometimes known as ‘watchnight’ or ‘waitnight’ because of the shepherds were watching their sheep when the angels appeared to them.), when the Christmas celebrations began.

Also, at this time, many orchestras and choirs were being set up in the cities of England and people wanted Christmas songs to sing, so carols once again became popular. Many new carols such as ‘Good King Wenceslas’, were also written.

New carols services were created and became popular, as did the custom of singing carols in the streets. Both of these customs are still popular today and fortunately one can sing Christmas carols as much as they would like without being fined.

Christmas Carols are sung mostly during the holiday season but most of us find ourselves humming them periodically during the course of the year. They come out of our mouths mindlessly and we rarely stop and wonder where they came from. Most revolve around the birth of Christ but the variety, history and popularity of Christmas carols is fascinating. Two of the most popular songs of all time are Christmas carols.

Silent Night – was a poem written by an Austrian priest, Joseph Mohr, in 1816. It became a Christmas carol on Christmas Eve in 1818 in Obendorf, Austria, a village near Salzburg, when Joseph decided he needed a carol for Christmas Eve services. He gave the poem to his friend Franz Xavier Gruber who wrote the melody in a few hours. It was composed for the guitar which was Joseph’s favorite instrument. It is the most famous Christmas carol of all time.

God Rest Ye Merry, Gentleman – was first published in William Sandy’s “Christmas Carols Ancient and Modern” in 1833. The author is unknown. Most people sing and interpret this song as God Rest Ye, Merry Gentleman thinking it means for merry fellows to rest. The rest wasn’t intended to mean lie down but to keep as you are, to stay merry. Rest ye merry means to remain peacefully content and so the true meaning of the song is hoping God will bestow this contentment on the gentleman. Even Dickens misinterpreted the comma as God Rest Ye, Merry Gentleman when he refers to it in “A Christmas Carol”. Scrooge didn’t like the carol being sung at his keyhole speaking of merriment. Bah Humbug.

What Child is This – with words written to the melody Greensleeves. It originated in Elizabethan times and is mentioned by Shakespeare in “The Merry Wives of Windsor” when it is played as traitors are hanged.

Jingle Bells was written by James Pierpont in 1857 for a Thanksgiving program at his church in Boston. Everyone liked it and so it was repeated at Christmas and it has been a Christmas song ever since.

O Little Town of Bethlehem was composed by Lewis Redner with words by Bishop Phillips Brooks in 1868. The Bishop had been to the Holy Land a few years earlier and was inspired by looking down on Bethlehem from the hills of Palestine at night.

Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer – A twentieth century carol created for Montgomery Ward by Robert May. Montgomery Ward asked May to write a Christmas story to be given out to shoppers during the holidays. May was inspired by the tale of the Ugly Duckling and his own sad youth as a small, shy child and created the idea of the reindeer outcast shunned by the other reindeers because of his bright red nose. He wrote the story in rhyming couplets. It almost didn’t get published because his boss at Montgomery Ward thought that the public would view the red nose as caused by drinking. May eventually acquired the copyright for the song and it was recorded by Gene Autry in 1949. It is the second best selling song of all time with White Christmas being the first. Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer is also a popular Christmas ornament with a festive Christmas wreath hung around his neck.

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This volume is produced from digital images created through the University of Michigan University Library’s large-scale digitization efforts. The Library seeks to preserve the intellectual content of items in a manner that facilitates and promotes a variety of uses. The digital reformatting process results in an electronic version of the original text that can be both accessed online and used to create new print copies. The Library also understands and values the usefulness of print and makes reprints available to the public whenever possible. This book and hundreds of thousands of others can be found in the HathiTrust, an archive of the digitized collections of many great research libraries. For access to the University of Michigan Library’s digital collections, please see http://www.lib.umich.edu and for information about the HathiTrust, please visit http://www.hathitrust.org

The christmas book of carols and songs

The festival of Christmas celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ and conveys his message of love, tolerance and brotherhood. It’s a celebration of humanity and mankind. Though Christmas is a primary festival of the Christian calendar but still it has a special significance in everyone’s life. It is celebrated as a universal festival through out the nation. The first mention of 25th December as the birth date of Jesus occurred in 336 A.D .Christmas is one of the biggest celebrations for the people belonging to the Christian faith.Though the mode of celebration, the dates and the traditions vary, the spirit remains the same everywhere.People often decorate there homes with stars and lights to show there happiness towards this celebration.Christmas is the most important festival of Indian Christians. Christians in India decorate banana or mango trees instead of traditional pine tree. They also light small oil-burning lamps as Christmas decorations and fill their churches with red flowers.Churches often have an Evening Service on Christmas and are fabulously decorated with poinsettias and candles. Caroling processions on streets and thoroughfares can also be seen.

One of the things that make Christmas special is the spirit of giving. As children we can’t wait for Christmas morning to open presents. We thought in terms of receiving. As adults we think in terms of giving. And hopefully, our christmas gifts are gifts of love.Gifts are the simplest and beautiful way to greet someone u love and care.On the christmas eve people plan a special gift  to surprise there close one’s.On christmas night childrens expect that santa will come and give them a beautiful gift so as to recieve it they hang a piece of clothe or a sockes so that santa can put there gift in there hanging.

Christmas party is the event for which every one wait eggerly.Christmas is a time for numerous social events.Christmas is also a season for parties. Typically, a Christmas party is organized by a school, a company, an organization, a church, or a family. Traditionally, such parties include songs, dances, competitions, and games.Christmas parties are famous world over for their themes and the enjoyment factor. The party organized one day before Christmas is referred to as christmas eve party. Normally, Christmas Eve Party is held for shorter durations on account of the great festival the next day. The Christmas Eve party involves a small group of friends or family members or professionals. The party lasts for three hours to five hours. It is organized towards the evening and does not stretch into the night. May be bachelors organize parties for they have the tendency of stretching into the night. But families avoid stretching the party late into the night.

For kids, there are a plethora of games such as running race,frog race, skipping and hopping. Reward the winners with candies and cookies. Rewards encourage kids to take part in more number of games. You can also organize other interesting games like sack race and three-legged race for the kids. But ensure that there is paramedical staff nearby to attend to the participants of the games in case they injure themselves.

Did you know that there are literally thousands of songs you can play if you know just 3 chords?

It’s true. Songs from “Amazing Grace” to “Cum Ba Ya” to “Happy Birthday” to “On Top Of Old Smoky”, “My Country ‘Tis of Thee”, “Take Me Out To The Ball Game”, “God Bless America” and countless others.

But there are also Christmas Carols that you can learn to play this Christmas if you know, or are willing to learn, three simple chords.

So what are these chords?

In any given key, there are 3 “family members” that are residents of that key—the I chord, the IV chord, and the V chord. They are far and away the most likely chords to occur in any given key.

For example, if I am playing in the Key of C, and the first chord is the C chord and I have to guess what the next chord is, I would guess that it would be either the F chord or the G chord. Why? Because those are the other “family members.” So we have narrowed the odds a great deal just by knowing who the members of the family are.

So how could I tell whether it should be F or G?

If the melody is a “B”, then the chord is probably a G chord. Why? Because “B” is in the G chord, but is not in the F chord.

If the melody is a “A”, than I would guess that the chord is F. Why? Because “A” is in the F chord, but is not in the G chord.

You can also just match one of the three chords to the melody to see if it sounds right. If it doesn’t, try another of the 3 chords. It won’t take long before you get the knack of matching chords to the tune of a song.

Does that mean that there are always just 3 chords in a song? No, but there are literally hundreds of songs that are made of just 3 chords.

Here are a few Christmas Carols you can play with just 3 chords:

O Christmas Tree Angels We Have Heard On High Silent Night Away In A Manger Joy To The World Deck The Halls Go, Tell It On The Mountain O Come, O Come Immanuel Star Of The East The First Noel The Holly And The Ivy While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen Hark! The Herald Angels Sing I Heard The Bells On Christmas Day

Can you use other chords in these carols? Of course. And they will probably sound fuller if you do. But you can “get by” with just 3 chords—the family chords in whatever key you want to play them in.

Here are the primary chords (the family chords) of all the major keys (remember that the primary chords are the I chord, the IV chord, and the V chord based on the scale of that particular key):

Key of C: C, F, G

Key of G: G, C, D

Key of D: D, G, A

Key of A: A, D, E

Key of E: E, A, B

Key of B: B, E, F#

Key of F: F, Bb, C

Key of Bb: Bb, Eb, F

Key of Eb: Eb, Ab, Bb

Key of Ab: Ab, Db, Eb

Key of Db: Db, Gb, Ab

Key of Gb: Gb, Cb, Db

Do you have to know all these chords in all these keys?

No.

You can choose to play in just one key, or just a few keys.

But what you MUST know is the 3 chords in whatever key you want to play in! That means that the stark beginner can learn 3 chords in just a few minutes, and be able to play along with thousands of tunes, because most folk songs, hymns, country songs, and many rock songs just use the 3 basic chords. That’s why people who know zilch about music can pick up a guitar or sit down at a piano or keyboard, learn 3 chords, and chord along while singing everything from “Silent Night” to “Joy To The World” to…well, you get the idea.

Go thou and do likewise. It’s not too late—Christmas comes every year right on schedule!

can you list as many as you know?
Also i need to know all the books about Christmas!