Customer Reviews

My First Book of Christmas Songs: 20 Favorite Songs in Easy Piano Arrangements (Dover Music for Piano)

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Here are the 20 songs in the book:
Angels We Have Heard on High; Jingle Bells; Away in a Manger; Joy to the World; Silent Night; Deck the Halls; O, Come All Ye Faithful; Song of the Birds; The Coventry Carol; O Come, O Come, Emmanuel; We Three Kings of Orient Are; The First Nowell; O Little Town of Bethlehem; What Child is This?; Hark! The Herald Angels Sing; O Christmas Tree; We Wish You a Merry Christmas; God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen; Pat-a-pan; Shepherds, O Shepherds.
There are illustrations throughout the book for children to color, and all-in-all it's not bad for the price. I do wish, however, that all the verses of the songs could have been included (only the first verse is given) so that you wouldn't have to buy a Christmas songbook separately or hunt down verses on the Internet.

Having purchased this for my kids to use and practice in time for Christmas 2005, I pretested all the music and found it to be a nice starter set of Christmas music for the piano student in their first or second year of training. The arrangements tend to be minimalistic. Caveat: there are at least two obviously wrong notes in The First Nowell and Jingle Bells, so you'd be well advised to correct them once you find them; hopefully they'll fix them by the time a second edition rolls out. Nice features: Each song can be played without turning pages. A charming black-and-white illustration accompanies each song. There's also a list of the songs in order of difficulty for those who want to learn the songs that way.

This is a great book from Dover Publishing. The layout and illustrations are nice, but there is one infamous typo, and frankly, this is a book for more advanced elementary piano students. As a teacher, I've got quite a collection of Christmas music books, and this is definitely not a "first book." If you're looking for more simpler music that's much better geared for younger children, look for the Bastien collection.

Great for children. Each song is illustrated with pictures to color. Wide representation of songs and styles. The arrangements are simple, but musical.

Note: Although this book is for beginners, it is at the Primary Level. If you're looking for a simple five-finger Christmas book. This isn't it. Great for Level II Primary however!

It's also a fun book to improvise from. There's something about seeing the Carols broken out of their standard hymn settings that sparks the imagination for creating spontaneous innovative arrangements when working from Bergerac's setting as a base.

A great Value!

This is a great book for a first year piano student. It's fun and a real confidence booster for kids to be able to sit down and play a familiar Christmas tune for grandma and grandpa or other guests and this book gives simple arrangements that sound nice. Plus there are pictures to color too so for under five dollars I can't think of a better deal!

I have never played the piano before this past year and at 56 years of age, it isn't the easiest thing to pick up! However, this book not only let's you play 'like a pro' right off the bat, but the stylings are simple, understandable, and with the number of the finger of each hand attached to each note, one can play with confidence immediately! Lovely and very satisfying. E.

Many kids get this book before the age of 10, and even 5 is not too early to start them learning their Christmas songs. On any given day you will see the children streaming from music school or music camp, clutching this durable Dover book to their chests while the music in their heads strums through their fingers, and conjures up a jolly Christmas to come. The sadder aspects of Christmas are not forgotten either, and the minor keys in which some holiday gems are written (e.g., O Little Town of Bethlehem which, even if not in a minor key borrows some mournful tones from Russian and Jewish music) will provide an adult counterpoint to the brainless holiday rock music that's a staple to US top 40 radio around this time of year.

Give your kids (or nephews and nieces) this book of Christmas songs. Bergerac is one of the best arrangers around, and knows the mind of a child every bit as extensively as the late Dr. Seuss. Indeed, one hopes that Bergerac goes to work next on a book of Seuss-inspired tunes, that would be awesome.

We love Christmas and this has been a fun book for our piano player to learn Christmas songs from. Simple but the melody is there.

Anyone can truly teach themselves how to play the piano with this children's collection of familiar Christmas songs. My husband bought me a keyboard as a graduation gift when I got my Master's degree. He said it was to fill all my free time now that I won't be studying, reading, or writing. Well, this Christmas I played three songs for my family on Christmas Eve. It was so heart-warming. It was a memorable experience for my husband and son as well. This book presents songs that are playable by the novice adult piano player. Thanks for giving us a new Christmas tradition.

Kind of minimalist harmony, but each piece represents a small challenge for the beginning player. For example, most of the pieces require that both hands move around a bit rather than stay in one position. A couple of the arrangements are quite nice, a couple are just OK, the rest are good. (They're beginners' pieces, so none of them are really going to knock your socks off.)