Celtic Christmas Music
Christ Child's Lullaby
Christmas music that is unfamiliar, gentle and beautiful.
While young kids get excited about playing "Jingle Bells," "Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer," and "Frosty, the Snowman," many older piano students are more interested in exploring new territory!
Quiet intermediate/late elementary piano music
Download this Christmas piano sheet music free for your early intermediate pupils. Page one:
Please scroll down the page for the download links.
A new piece for Christmas
Christmas music that is unfamiliar is a great find! My family and many of my piano students have loved this piece (first heard on Kim Robertson's Celtic Christmas, a harp CD some years ago).
A vocal arrangement is available
Below is a lovely version sung by a group of teens in Sewickley, PA for the TriCounty Choir Institute 2009 Madrigal Performance.
I believe this is the version of the Christ Child's Lullaby arranged for SATB at Sheetmusicplus.com -- (there is a small "listen" button on the Sheetmusicplus page to compare arrangements):
The piano version of Christ Child's Lullaby really does sound like a lullaby, with the rocking feeling of the back-and-forth open 5th chords going up and down an octave (as in When Christ was Born, also on my website).
Page two:
Please scroll down the page for the download links.
This is nice & easy, except for the third part.
The melody is exactly the same with each repetition (there are four returns of the theme). But the left hand gets progressively harder in each section.
"Quiet" music?
I like to give this piece to students who are needing a soft, pretty piano piece. When I say NEEDING a soft piece, I'm talking about heavy-handed piano students who think and play at one level -- FORTE!
Please scroll down the page for the download links.
Focus on the melody first
I also like for students to have a bit of time to memorize the right hand melody before starting the third section with its quickly-moving eighth notes, so that they can give most of their attention to the left hand. It is admittedly tricky!
More vocal renditions of Christ Child's Lullaby
Here is another lovely rendition of this beautiful Christmas music by a group called the Crimson Ensemble, with a slightly different tune. No video seems to be available, anymore.
Another interesting version I found from the lullaby album Kist o Dreams uses some of the Scottish Gaelic words like the recording above. The real title of Christ Child's Lullaby is "Taladh Chriosd".
Good luck trying to listen to these on Amazon... most recent attempts on my part to go into these albums and hear these renditions always brought up the wrong songs.
Lots of verses - in the original!
According to some at mudcat.org, there are 29 verses in the original song, which was written in the mid-1800's). It is said to be one of the few Scottish Gaelic Christmas songs.
The link for the piano music:
Download printable Christmas sheet music Christ Child's Lullaby
Dianna:
Your website is a light in the darkness. THANK YOU for all you do in helping to spread the love of music. It matters!
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All the first-year material I give my beginner students.
Piano keyboard sheets, scales, chords, note-reading exercises, and over 256 pages of music!
This beautiful song book for piano & voice "Esther, For Such a Time as This", available as a digital download, tells the riveting story of the time when Jews in ancient Persia faced a foe named Haman, and how a brave young queen risked her life to save her people.
A good choice for a singing story-teller, an operatic group, a short theater production, or a class of children!
This book is also available from Amazon as a paperback.
This book is available as a digital download from this site. Visit this page to see some free examples from the book.
It is also available from Amazon as a paperback!
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And when they start reading white-key notes on the staff, this is a fun easy resource to say each week, "Choose a new black-key song at home this week and figure it out to show me next lesson!" They will be spending more time at the piano.
A perfect read aloud storybook
for little boys or girls.
The Adventures of Tonsta highlight the travels of a very young boy with a good heart, who goes about helping folk in trouble.
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Louise:
I just wanted to say thank you so very much for your free printable sheet music. I am a piano teacher from the UK who has recently moved to a very remote location in Australia!
I found little to no decent music for my children to learn anywhere close by anyway and this website has been more than helpful as I've scoured around looking for resources. Just wanted to share my thanks! Blessings to you.
Bidur:
Thanks a lot for building such a nice site where people can easily find and free download sheet music for beginners. I am going to start teaching piano to kids.
I was just searching for some basic interesting songs for my pupil. Here, I found a wonderful site where I spent more than 3 hours and downloaded some music. Thanks again for making my day easier.
About the Author
Hi, I'm Dana! (Say that like "Anna".) I'm the owner of Music-for-Music-Teachers.com, and a newer site, SingTheBibleStory.com.
Like some of you, I've been playing the piano since early childhood, and have added a few other instruments along the way, plus an interest in arranging and composing music.
You can find out more about me and the reason for this website at my About Me page.
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