Basic Piano Library Merry Christmas! Books

Your child - or you! - will enjoy practicing these charming traditional Christmas Carols with which they will entertain your family and friends during the Christmas season. 

While they do not correspond page-by-page with the Basic Piano Course Lesson Book, the Merry Christmas Books instead progress in order of difficulty, while staying within the appropriate Lesson Book level of any of Alfred's methods. ​Lesson Books 1 through 4 allow for Carolyne to play duet with your child as they are learning. When titles are repeated, the content is more complex than the earlier version.

​You are welcome to purchase any of these additional books and Carolyne will then incorporate them into your child's lesson.

By Level 6, students will progress to playing original versions of Christmas pieces.

Merry Christmas! Book 1A

Alfred's Basic Piano Library
​Merry Christmas! Book 1A
Method Concepts
  • Introduction to playing
  • Keyboard orientation
  • Finger number recognition
  • White Keys
  • Middle C Position
  • The Staff
  • The Bass Clef
  • The Treble Clef
  • The Grand Staff
  • Melodic and harmonic intervals:
    2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th
  • G Position
  • Legato
  • Sharps / F#
  • Flats / Bb
  • Staccato

​Skill Level
  • Basic Course:  begin after page 22, 1A​​

Christmas Carols, which Carolyne will play as a duet along with your child, include:
  • Away in a Manger
  • Christmas Day
  • Coventry Carol
  • Good King Wenceslas
  • Joy to the World
  • O Come, All Ye Faithful
  • Silent Night
  • Snow Lay on the Ground
  • Up on the Housetop
  • We Three Kings
    ​​​
16 pages
​​
View sample
​Retail Price: $7

Merry Christmas! Book 1B

Alfred's Basic Piano Library
​Merry Christmas! Book 1B
Method Concepts
  • Incomplete measures
  • Tempo markings
  • Eighth notes and rests
  • Damper pedal
  • Half steps and whole steps
  • Major scale
  • Tetrachords

​Skill Level
  • Basic Course:  begin after page 16, 1B​

Christmas Carols, which Carolyne will play as a duet along with your child, include:
  • Angels We Have Heard on High
  • Go Tell It on the Mountain
  • Jingle Bells
  • Jolly Old St. Nicholas
  • Silent Night
  • Twelve Days of Christmas
  • We Wish You a Merry Christmas

16 pages
​
​View sample
​Retail Price: $7​

Merry Christmas! Book 2

Alfred's Basic Piano Library
​Merry Christmas! Book 2
Method Concepts
  • Dotted half notes, dotted quarter notes
  • Melodic and harmonic intervals:
    6ths, 7ths and octaves
  • Crossing two over one
  • Scales
  • Triads, primary chords, blocked and broken chords

Christmas Carols, which Carolyne will play as a duet along with your child, include:
  • Away in a Manger
  • Here We Come A Caroling
  • Joy to the World
  • O Christmas Tree
  • Pat a Pan
  • Silent Night
  • The First Noel
  • Up on the Housetop

16 pages

View sample
​Retail Price: $7

Merry Christmas! Book 3

Alfred's Basic Piano Library
​Merry Christmas! Book 3
Method Concepts​
  • Overlapping pedal
  • 3/8 and 6/8 time signatures
  • Primary triads in Major and Minor keys
  • Passing one under two / one under three
  • Major scales in contrary motion
  • Chromatic scale
  • Minor scale

Christmas Carols, which Carolyne will play as a duet along with your child, include:
  • Go Tell It on the Mountain
  • Jingle Bells
  • O Come Little Children
  • O Little Town of Bethlehem
  • Over the River and Through the Woods
  • Silent Night
  • Ukrainian Bell Carol
  • We Wish You a Merry Christmas

16 pages
​​
View sample
​Retail Price: $7

Merry Christmas! Book 4

Alfred's Basic Piano Library
​Merry Christmas! Book 4
Method Concepts​​
  • Tarantellas
  • Eighth note triplets
  • Arpeggiated chords
  • First and second inversion triads in C
  • Triads in all positions
  • Major scales in parallel motion
  • Two-part writing
  • Seventh chords and inversions
  • E harmonic minor scale in contrary motion
  • Primary chords in E minor
  • Sixteenth notes
  • Dotted eighth notes
  • Primary chords in B-flat Major and G Minor
  • Repeated-note warm-ups
  • Harmonic minor scales in parallel motion

Christmas Carols, which Carolyne will play as a duet along with your child, include:
  • Deck the Halls
  • Foom, Foom, Foom
  • God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman
  • Joy to the World
  • March of the Three Kings
  • Mary’s Cradle Song
  • Silent Night
  • Sing Noel, Noel

16 pages
​​
View sample
​Retail Price: $7

Merry Christmas! Book 5

Alfred's Basic Library
​Merry Christmas! Book 5, Sonatinas
Method Concepts​​
  • Ornaments:
    - long and short appoggiatura
    - trill and mordent
  • Arpeggios
  • A Major scale
  • Keys of B minor and C minor
  • Minuets, sonatinas, preludes, arias
    ​    ​
Sonatina
A sonatina is a short sonata; it consists of three movements, most common is Allegro, Largo, Rondo. Book 5 is comprised of:
  • Sonatina No. 1, The Joys of Christmas
    • O Thou Joyful Day
    • Sleep, Little Jesus
    • We Are Going to the Stable

  • Sonatina No. 2, The Song of Christmas
    • There’s a Song in the Air
    • It Came Upon the Midnight Clear
    • Angels We Have Heard on High

  • Carol of the Bagpipers

16 pages

View sample
​Retail Price: $7