Guitar Tablature Guide: Christmas & Traditional
A few recommendations for those in the Christmas Spirit!
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Editor's Picks...
Below are our personal picks, the sites that get our
highest recommendation for this genre. They are listed in alphabetical order.
Note:
Most of these sites do not exclusively feature Christmas sheet music. In other words, they have Christmas sheet music, but others
as well, so you have to navigate to the Christmas section of the site.
Christmas
Song Guitar Tab & Lyrics
Instrumentation for: Guitar
Categories: Christmas
Catalog Size: Medium (25-50)
This is About.com's collection of holiday favorites for guitar. A good selection of Christmas songs and lyrics,
including not only favorite traditional songs, but tabs for renditions of new Christmas songs by U2, the Kinks,
Blues Traveller and others.
The Gospel Music
Archive
Instrumentation for: Guitar (Tablature), Harmonica
Categories: Christian, Christmas, Children
Catalog Size: Very Large (500+?)
Here you'll find a very large selection of tablature for both guitar and, strangly enough, harmonica. Music is
sorted alphabetically for easy browsing, and a search tool is available. While the site is predominantly dedicated
to worship and praise music, you'll also find a nice selection of other songs. There's an entire section for kids,
as well as a large variety of Christmas songs. Updated 12/31/2001
Noel,
Noel, Noel
Instrumentation for: Piano, Guitar Lead Sheets, Voice.
Categories: Christmas
Catalog Size: Small (10-25)
Noel, Noel, Noel is a beautiful website dedicated to the celebration of Christmas. Included in their free online
offerings are over a dozen Christmas carols arranged both for each piano
(with voice parts) as well as for guitar, with melody and chords.
You'll find Away in a Manger, I Saw Three Ships, O Come All Ye
Faithful, We Three Kings and others. Well worth visiting if only
to view the site's original artwork. At Noel, Noel, Noel, you'll find lots of Christmas cheer to keep your days
jolly. Updated 12/03/2002.
Praise-Worship.net
Instrumentation for: Guitar Tablature, Bass Tablature
Categories: Christian, Christmas,
Kids
Catalog Size: Huge (6000+)
This fantastic web site features thousands of guitar and bass tabs for the Christian musician. You'll find over
4000 tabs by popular Christian artists (including all the big names) and over 1400 praise and worship tunes, all
searchable by artist or song name. In addition, you'll find nearly 100 Christmas tunes, tunes for kids, transparencies
and chord charts. One of the top sites in this category. Very highly recommended. Reviewed 12/18/2000.
More Free Christmas Sheet Music Resources:
A
Traditional Music Library
Instrumentation for: Piano, Voice or Guitar (Lead
Sheets for All)
Categories: Traditional, Christmas
Catalog Size: Huge (1000+)
This huge sheet music library contains thousands of songs in a melody + chord format. The 'library' is divided
into 'songbooks' containing different styles of music making it easier to find the kind of music you want. For
example, there are bluegrass songbooks, songbooks containing Irish folk tunes, scottish, christmas, cowboy songs,
bawdy songs, 'well known traditional tunes', and many more. Once you select a songbook, you'll get a long list
of songs available in alphabetical order. Each song contains the melody, chords, and a MIDI file for the song so
you can listen to how it should go. The entire library is free here but also available for purchase on CD which
gives you much higher quality scores than those here. Also, don't miss the selections available in Noteworthy Composer
format. Added 06/05/2001.
ezFolk.com
Instrumentation for: Folk Guitar, Banjo, Ukulele
Categories: Traditional, Christmas, Popular
Catalog Size: Medium (50-100)
Richard Hefner’s excellent instructional site for banjo, folk guitar, and ukulele includes tablature and tutorials
as well MP3 files for most of the songs. You'll find a number of Christmas selections, as well as popular folk
favorites such as Amazing Grace, Blue Mountain,
Cripple Creek, and Greensleeves. Don't miss
the special tab provided for the music from O Brother,
Where Art Thou?. Reviewed 10/08/2001.
Nottingham
Folk Music Database
Instrumentation for: Guitar, Folk & Traditional
Instruments
Categories: Folk, Christmas, Historical
Catalog Size: Very Large (1000+)
Fans of renaissance or traditional folk music will really appreciate the Nottingham Folk Music Database, which
contains chords and melodies for over a thousand folk songs. Selections include jigs, reels, waltzes and more.
Music is downloadable in PDF, GIF, and ASCII (text) format. MIDI files are also provided for most songs. Over 30
Christmas selections are included as well. Added 05/20/2003.
Songs of Praise: Original Worship Sheet
Music
Instrumentation for: Piano, Guitar Tablature and
Lead Sheets
Categories: Christian, Christmas
Catalog Size: Large (100-500)
Here you'll find a fantastic collection of original
songs for worship and praise in your church by numerous artists. This well organized site features nearly two hundred
songs, most with free downloadable sheet music you can print right from your web browser. Each song also has a
midi file, and many of the songs also have RealAudio and MP3 files to listen to. There's also a very nice selection
of sheet music arrangements for original Christmas music. Many songs even include translations, for French, Dutch,
Italian, Chinese and many others. Check out the 'Jukebox' which allows you to listen to the songs featured here.
Updated 04/22/2002.
Split Infinity Music:
Public Domain Worship and Praise
Instrumentation for: Guitar (Tablature)
Categories: Christian, Christmas
Catalog Size: Large (100-500)
Split Infinity Music offers a wide selection of public domain Christian guitar tablature including Hymns, choruses,
and Christmas music. They also have one very unique feature... the ability to instantly transpose your selection
to any other key. So, if you decided you would rather play A
Mighty Fortress Is Our God in the key of E rather
than the default key of D, you can do that with a single click. Very cool. Finally, you can browse and listen to
MIDI files for over 2000 church hymns. Updated 11/13/2001.
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