Christmas Tunes to Harmonize: A Free Reference Sheet

October 18, 2021
by Amy
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One of the most downloaded free resources here on Piano Pantry is 147 Tunes to Harmonize: Traditional, Popular, and Christmas.

Due to the popularity of this download as well as the recent release of my new book Christmas by Ear: 8 Tunes to Harmonize, I thought now was a perfect time to share with you a FREE handy quick reference guide of Christmas tunes to harmonize!

Each of the 20 tunes included are well-known traditional ones that are in the public domain.

Often, students are happy to play only a portion of a favorite tune. While many Christmas tunes have a little more complicated harmonizations, sometimes the opening portion or the chords are more simplified. For this reason, a few are listed twice.

For example, you can harmonize the open two phrases of Deck the Halls using only tonic and dominant. Many’s students might get a kick out of being able to play even a few phrases of favorite tunes by ear without having to learn the whole thing!

Here are a couple of quick ideas on how you could use it:

  1. Pull it out when students forget their materials or haven’t practiced enough on their pieces.
  2. Practice harmonizing these tunes on your own to develop your own ear!
  3. Have students choose one piece off the list that they’re not learning as part of their Christmas repertoire and have them work on playing chords while they sing! One of my favorite first steps with students is to play root position chords in the RH and either chord roots or root octaves in the LH.

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Friday Finds #231: Playing By Ear

October 15, 2021
by Amy
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With this week’s launch of my new Christmas by Ear: 8 Tunes to Harmonize book, I thought it would be fitting for this week’s finds to continue on the theme of harmonizing and playing by ear. 🙂

P.S. There’s a 15% off launch celebration discount going on that will end on Oct. 26 so don’t delay in getting your copy!

 

1

Is Learning to Play by Ear Worth it? What the Best Piano Education Experts Really Think (Piano Picnic)

I, along with a lot of other wonderful online content creators, chimed in on this post a few years ago.

 

2

How Do You Play a Song By Ear? (Musical You)

 

3

I know playing by ear can be a hard topic – it’s something I struggle with every day myself. If we do anything with our students on playing by hearing though as piano teachers, let it be about them playing “Happy Birthday“.

Just this week I had one of my 6th-grade students excitedly tell me about how she gets to be part of the middle school show choir now. In their first practice, the teacher asked if anyone could play the piano. After stating she did, the class (of course!) asked her to play something. What did she play? Happy Birthday! She was SO PROUD she could sit down and do that!

Happy Birthday By Ear: The Ultimate Teaching Resource.

 

4

3 First Pop and Rock Songs to Teach by Ear (Chrissy Ricker)

 

5

How to Play Pop Tunes by Ear (Bradley Sowash)

 

6

How to Simplify and Teach a Pop Song By Ear (Creative Piano Teaching Podcast #107)

 

7

While I’ve had a small handful of students over the years that have incredibly strong ears for playing music by ear, this little guy is probably one of the best. He amazes me at every lesson! Hear him play “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” in 12 keys.

 

The Most Versatile Christmas Book You’ll Ever Own

October 12, 2021
by Amy
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Teacher: “Billy, do you want to play any Christmas music this year?”

Billy: “Eh, no not really.”

Am I right when I say this is a phrase you rarely if ever hear from piano students? 🙂

I would suffice to say that Christmas is the time of year when many students get most passionate about what they want to play. Some have quite strong feelings about what favorite Christmas tunes they want to play and some just want to play as much as they possibly can.

Today I’m excited to share with you a new Christmas book that is unlike any other Christmas book for piano students. 

I’m confident that you’ll not only find it to be completely unique, but incredibly versatile as well.

What is it?

It’s a book of 8 Christmas tunes to harmonize and play by ear including:

  1. I Saw Three Ships
  2. Away in a Manger
  3. Silent Night
  4. Up On the Housetop
  5. Go Tell it On the Mountain
  6. Jingle Bells
  7. Joy to the World
  8. The First Noel

 

Goals of this Book

The overarching goal of this book is to enable piano students to feel like they can sit down and play some of their favorite Christmas tunes anywhere and at any time without notation in front of them.

Many students find great joy in the annual musical feast that comes around each year making it a great opportunity for the development of life-long musicianship skills.

Students will be encouraged to discern between duple vs. triple meters and major vs. minor tonalities, learn to harmonize using chords, play in a variety of keys, use several accompaniment patterns, and more.

The format encourages the development of audiation, improvisation, and creativity skills by presenting multi-level steps/variations on playing each tune. Each song includes its own checklist so students can use and build on these sheets year after year as their skills progress.

Besides developing skills for playing by ear and playing tunes in a variety of ways, students are also gaining the valuable skill of learning how to play from a chord chart in any key.

Think of it kind of like “build-a-bear” – students are “building-a-book” of Christmas music! 🙂

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Happy Birthday By Ear: The Ultimate Teaching Resource

March 5, 2021
by Amy
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Can you think of any moments when, as a young piano student, you were
put on the spot or caught off guard being asked to play something for people and feeling the heat rise to your face because you weren’t able to do so “because you didn’t have any “music”?

I myself have had many experiences in this situation – sadly, even into my early adult years. Often, the request was a simple one – “Happy Birthday” – and yet to me, it was crippling and made me feel ashamed.

These people know me as THE pianist in their life. That’s what I’m known for! Why can’t I just sit down and play this simple tune without music?

Without a doubt, life experiences make up who we are today.

As a teacher, I’m now determined to help my students feel
ENABLED and CONFIDENT that, as pianists, they can sit down and play something anywhere and at any time – starting with the tune “Happy Birthday.”

Today I am excited to release the ultimate teaching resource for playing “Happy Birthday” by ear and am confident this is the only download you will ever need!

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147 Tunes to Harmonize: Traditional, Popular, and Christmas (Free Download)

March 9, 2019
by Amy
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Over my years of teaching, I’ve encountered several lists of tunes to harmonize using primary chords. Often, however, they’re either not very comprehensive, or they include a lot of tunes that students these days have never heard because they only include folk tunes and a couple of Christmas songs.

Last summer, I started a studio-wide harmonization focus that lasted through the summer and fall. After continually having students look at the song list and shake their heads that they didn’t know many of the songs, I finally decided it was time to compile my own list.

This comprehensive list includes 147 tunes (traditional, popular, and Christmas). The list progresses from tunes that only use a tonic chord to those that use four chords (I, IV, V, vi). They are mostly in major tonality (of course, because we live in the Western World), but there are also some minor tunes.

They are also not tied to any particular chord progression (such as I-IV-V-I or I-vi-IV-V). It will be up to you and your student(s) to determine when the harmonic changes occur within each tune.

Besides sharing this free download, I thought we could chat briefly about what it means to “harmonize” tunes.

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