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Hi Amy!
Do you have favorite collections of Christmas music for your students?
My middle kid wants me to get out ‘the’ Christmas music book (we have a very old primer from my in-laws).
I told him he had to learn two new songs from a non-Christmas book before I would think about that. So, he sat down and sight-read the whole Faber Piano Adventures, Level 2A Performance book.
(I guess the desire for Christmas music was a good motivator!) So, I’m going to get the Faber Christmas books for levels 2 and 3.
Do you have any other recommendations?
-Anna Parkinson
Hey, Anna!
Why yes, I do! I actually have an entire blog post dedicated to some of my “Trusty Christmas Favorites.“
But first of all, bravo to you for finding a way to light the fire for your kiddo! It sounds like you’re probably headed in the right direction.
As far as Faber goes, I don’t know if you intend on doing the Christmas books that correlate to the student library or the ones that are part of the “Show Time,” “Big Time,” and “Play Time” series. While either is fine, my personal preference is the latter.
Since I have a whole post of my favorites, I won’t share too many more details here but will mention that you might also consider getting him the Adult Piano Adventures Christmas Books.
Each book has a lot of music. The first 1/3 of book 1 is labeled as “beginning Christmas songs: easy arrangements with simple harmonies.” Section 2 has 13 pieces labeled as “Christmas songs in the key of C Major with I, IV, and V7 chords) and Section 3 is the same but in the key of G Major.
Due to the primary-chord structure and keys included, I would say book one is leveled with the student library up to level 3A.
I started trying some of Piano Pronto’s holiday books in the last couple of years. I haven’t used any of them long enough to say they’re ones I return to “year after year,” but there are some unique little finds. In particular, you might consider the Multi-Level Holiday Classics, which includes three difficulty levels for each piece.
Some of my older students enjoyed the arrangements in Christmas Classics: Contemporary Lyrical Solos. That book would probably not be his best next step, but I still wanted to mention it.
I hope this helps!
~Amy
9/2022 Update
My new Christmas By Ear collection is now available in the Piano Pantry shop!
Do you have any favorite Christmas collections? Share in the comments!
