Trumpet Christmas Duets book

Trumpet Christmas Duets is available as a physical book at the following online book stores:

This trumpet duet book is also available as a digital download (pdf) at the following online music stores:

Click on the following links if you’d like to hear what these duets sound like:

Trumpet Christmas Duets

Available as an ebook at TigerMusicStore.com.

We are happy to announce the release of our new trumpet duet book, Trumpet Christmas Duets. Functioning as something of a sequel to our very popular Trumpet Hymn Duets book, Trumpet Christmas Duets follows the same arranging conventions that lead to that first book’s success.

Trumpet Hymn Duets is currently our most popular book, and we have always said that these duets honor the harmonies and moods of the original hymns – and in this case the original Christmas carols.

What does it mean to honor the harmonies and moods of the original Christmas carols?

These Trumpet Christmas Duets are not as obnoxiously creative as a lot of my other work. If you are familiar with some of my trumpet trio Christmas arrangements, then you know that I can be very creative. Some would say that it’s too much.

I remember reading negative comments online about a similar book to mine. They were upset that the Christmas carols were unrecognizable in the arrangements. The arrangers took their creativity so far as to completely obliterate the tune.

THAT’S what I mean by honoring the harmonies and moods of the original Christmas Carols. For these Trumpet Christmas Duets, I decided to keep my creativity inside those boundaries. The Christmas carols never become so obscure that you cannot hear which Christmas carol it is.

Dedicated to Ruth Lewis:

The Trumpet Christmas Duets book is dedicated to my mother. Here is the text from the dedication page:

I don’t typically dedicate my work to people who have already died. Why I don’t is a long story, but it can be simplified into saying that I want to honor people while I still have them in my life. There’s nothing wrong, necessarily, with honoring people who have died. That’s a good thing. However, there are so many people who need our love now, and so few opportunities to honor them, that it just doesn’t make sense to me to invest into someone who can no longer appreciate that effort.

I’ve made an exception with this Trumpet Christmas Duets book because my mother was still alive when I began writing this page.

The original opening text was going to be:

“As we reach the final stages of putting this book together, my mother is lying in hospice. Naturally, I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about her and the role she played in my life. If my father was the spiritual backbone of our family, then my mother was the meat on those bones.”

I was working on what came after that, trying to connect my mother to the content of this book, when we got the call that she had passed. Now, three weeks later, I’ve had lots of time to think about that connection.

Christmas was always a special time for my mother. Always!

When she died, she had four different Christmas trees that she put up every year, even into her 80’s. She had Christmas decorations stored in almost every room of her house. At her church, my mother played a major role in preparing music and decorations for the Advent season. Every Christmas except her last, she made many dozens of Christmas cookies and other goodies to send to friends and family around the country. She was also proud to host Christmas parties for her “people group” and other groups she belonged to. Christmas truly was a very special time that my mother loved to celebrate every year.

Singing alto in church choirs for as long as I can remember, my mother probably knew all the words for the Christmas carols in this book. She used to fill the house with Christmas music and sing along as she went about her day. I think she would have been thrilled to know that I was dedicating a book of Christmas carols to her this way.

Christmas Carol List

The Christmas carols included in this trumpet duet book include:

  • Angels We Have Heard on High

  • Away in a Manger

  • Deck the Halls

  • The First Noel

  • God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen

  • Good King Wenceslas

  • Hark! The Herald Angels Sing

  • The Holly and the Ivy

  • In the Bleak Midwinter

  • It Came Upon a Midnight Clear

  • Joy to the World

  • Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence

  • O Come, All Ye Faithful

  • O Come, O Come, Emmanuel

  • O Holy Night!

  • O Little Town of Bethlehem

  • Quempas Carol

  • Silent Night

  • Still, Still, Still

  • We Three Kings of Orient Are

  • What Child Is This

Trumpet Duet Skill Level

The most important aspect concerning skill level of these duets is the range. I decided to limit the range to mostly inside the staff for this book. There are a few notes that fall outside of this, but the majority of the book is limited to G above the staff.

There are two reasons for this. The first is because there were a lot of people who asked for this in their responses to the Trumpet Hymn Duets book. The only real criticism we received was that some of the duets are just too high.

The other reason was because I know that these Christmas duets will be used on gigs. I’ve already used them on gigs myself, before the book project had begun. It doesn’t make sense to have too many high notes on duets which you might be playing for over two hours.

Aside from range, most of the book is straight forward. There are some ornaments towards the end of the book, and some chromatic lines, that might prove to be a sight reading challenge, but a little bit of practice will make those sections inconsequential.

Also Available Separately

Eventually, all of these trumpet duets will be available separately, as individual sheet music products. It is, of course, much more cost effective to purchase the Trumpet Christmas Duets book, but we understand that not everyone wants all of the duets. That’s why we are in the process of making them all available as individual products.

Let Us Know What You Think

We are always interested in hearing from you. We want to know what you think about this book, or any of our other products. That’s how we knew that people want trumpet duets that don’t spend too much time outside the staff. We heard from people like you who took the time to send us a comment.

Thank you for your interest in our work. We appreciate you!

Trumpet Christmas Duets Play-Along Recordings

There are play-along recordings for the Trumpet Christmas Duets book, just as there are for the Trumpet Hymn Duets book. You can buy these recordings as MP3s at Tiger Music, our online music store, or at iTunes.com. Alternatively, you can stream them at any of the standard streaming services. Look for the album, “Play-Along Trumpet Christmas Duets”.