Customer Reviews

The Complete Christmas Music Collection

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I bought this book after flipping through it in a music store. I was looking for something to take home for Christmas so we could have a good ol' time singing carols around the piano. This book has an incredible selection of songs. There are old, obscure pieces, more familiar secular songs as well as sacred hymns. I am sure that every Christmas song you can think of is in this collection (Even "Believe" from the Polar Express).

The deal is, that I'm pretty sure the book was just slapped together in a hurry without any proofreading. The pages are out of order at times, and more than half of the songs contain errors. A few arrangements are terrific, but lots of them sound like they were arranged by drunken first semester music theory students. HOWEVER if you have not been exposed to any professional ear training or music theory, then these songs will probably not bother you and you will be quite happy with them.

Most of the pieces are written so that they the intermediate pianist will have no trouble learning to play them. There are lyrics as space permits, usually one or two verses. If the piece has room at the bottom of the page, more verses are typed out, but this is the exception rather than the rule.

While this is a great collection of songs, including a lot I have never heard of, I was disappointed that "Complete" doesn't describe the lyrics. Many of the songs only have 1 or 2 verses and the chorus. For the number of pages, I would have preferred fewer songs and complete lyrics.

Also, there are way more chord changes than any guitar player I know would use or than I have ever heard in a song. It makes it difficult to play unless you go through and figure the standard changes.

Not being a piano player or great at reading music, I can't say for sure, but it looks about right for simply figuring out a new song on the keyboard.

This is a very playable book for sight reading on the piano and will keep the family entertained for hours at a fraction of the cost of the equivalent CDs while allowing the whole family to join in. Sure you have to pass up some of the chord changes but anyone with 5yrs or more of piano training should find this a breeze.