Christmas is on the way, whether you are ready or not! My students are already starting to ask about Christmas music.
I have a lending library of Christmas books that I’ve built over the years (including used books I find at garage sales and thrift shops), and I also like for my students to own their own Christmas books. But sometimes, it’s helpful to be able to find simple arrangements for free, printed from online. Below, I’ll list a few places I’ve found free Christmas arrangement sheet music for piano.
By the way, I am a stickler about observing copyright especially when it comes to sheet music…and I encourage you to be the same! Composers and arrangers deserve every penny of their royalty fees, and I am proud to support my fellow artists. Let’s do our due diligence and be sure to use sheet music legally. If you are wondering whether a free arrangement you find online is legal for you to use, please confirm that (1) the tune being arranged is no longer under copyright and is therefore in the public domain (otherwise the arranger is breaking copyright by not paying royalty fees to the copyright holder), and (2) the copyright holder of the arrangement is the one providing the arrangement to you (otherwise the person providing the arrangement is breaking copyright by giving you something that is not theirs). If you’d like to learn more about copyright when it comes to music, check out this article from the U.S. Copyright Office.
Beginners/Elementary Students
- ChrissyRicker.com | Chrissy Ricker is a fabulous pedagogical composer for piano, and she offers a handful of free arrangements for beginner and elementary level students on her website. She also offers a few versions intended for one hand alone (for students who might have a broken arm, for example) in addition to lead sheets. I recommend these, as well as all of Chrissy’s paid arrangements and original compositions.
- MichaelKravchuk.com | Michael Kravchuk’s site offers an impressive list of free Christmas arrangements.
- MakingMusicFun.net | Christmas arrangements for piano by Andrew Fling for levels one through four.
- PianoSongDownload.com | Julie Lind’s Christmas arrangements for piano from beginner level into intermediate.
- Susan Paradis’ arrangements at SusanParadis.com | browse through the “Seasonal” page to find Christmas arrangements for pre-reading through late intermediate levels.
- Capotastomusic.com | Christmas arrangements for beginners through last intermediate levels.
- gmajormusictheory.org | easy arrangements for levels primer through four.
Intermediate/Advanced
- Jenifer Cook’s Christmas arrangements at The Church Pianist Blog
- mfiles.co.uk | These piano arrangements are very chordal (almost SATB) of familiar Christmas tunes. There are guitar chords/TABS above the staff so you can play along with a friend if desired.
- DeFordMusic.com | These arrangements by Sally DeFord are true arrangements and are very pianistically written.
- KoertsMusic.com | James Koerts has a free arrangement posted of Joy To The World (scroll down a little on the page). I love the style of his arrangements!
Lead Sheets
- Michaelkravchuk.com | Michael Kravchuk’s site offers an impressive list of free Christmas lead sheets.
- ChrissyRicker.com | As mentioned earlier, Chrissy Ricker has a few Christmas lead sheets available on her site.
- PianoSongDownload.com | Julie Lind offers a few Christmas lead sheets. You’ll just need to sort through the list to find the Christmas tunes out of the complete list of lead sheets.
- janwolters.nl | Jan Wolters offers a variety of Christmas lead sheets to download.
- PublicDomainFakebooks | This site offers a free download containing lead sheets of Christmas carols in the public domain. The PDF even contains versions transposed in different keys for various instruments.
Please let me know if you’ve found other places on the web to find free Christmas arrangements and I will add them to the list!
Photo Credit: woodleywonderworks | CC 2.0
Your site/blog is amazing! Thanks for sharing with us!
Thanks, Abigail! Thanks for stopping by!
I recently discovered this site which has an online version of hymns and other sacred music available for printing. http://lds.org/churchmusic/
The Christmas hymns are from Hymn #201-214. One of the best features is that you can transpose them into any key to make them more suitable for your students playing abilities. The children’s songbook also has a few different arrangements of well known carols like Away in a Manger and other less familiar songs like “Picture a Christmas” Mary’s Lullaby and Stars Were Gleaming.
Hi Joy,
Thanks for posting this article! My students are so excited about Christmas music and I don’t have enough books to go around! I also found a wonderful Thanksgiving arrangement of “Come Ye Thankful People Come” for myself to play at church in the ‘Church Pianist Blog’ which you listed. Check it out!
Thanks!
Sarah A.
Yay, Sarah that’s great! I’m glad you were able to find some helpful things! =)
Thank you so much for sharing this! Just today i was thinking I need to get my students working on Christmas music but was dreading the search for appropriate scores. This really helped!
Thanks for posting this- this is a great reference! Just so you know, on LDS.org the Christmas hymns start at #201 and go until #214 (not #210- but probably just a typo!) 🙂
Thanks for catching that, Kylie!
Thank you so much for this list! Your blog has been so helpful, thanks for all your work and effort, I really appreciate it!
shameless self promo: http://freeldssheetmusic.org/Christmas has some free ones there…
This is EXACTLY what I need for this time of year. We’re starting to talk about Christmas music, and I realize I don’t have enough Christmas books to go around. Thanks for the great list!
Joy,
Thanks for the links. This is a great resource, as is your entire website. Thank you for sharing your expertise with us. Here’s another site with a lot of free music, from beginners on up: http://www.music-for-music-teachers.com/
Thanks for the links! Here is a website that I download Christmas lead sheets from: http://www.christmasmusicsongs.com
I have quite a few Christmas piano sheet music for all ages and levels on my website: http://www.pianosongdownload.com/christmasfree.html