ISBN 9781513455464. 8.75 x 11.75 inches.

A wealth of beautiful and joyous music has been written for the Christmas season. Some of the most enchanting melodies can be found in this solo mandolin edition of the Early American holiday repertoire. For this collection, Tommy Norris has selected eighteen lesser and better-known carols and songs from the folk, shape-note, sacred, Native American, African American spiritual, and European hymnody traditions, and arranged them for solo mandolin. Each intermediate to moderately advanced arrangement is shown in standard notation and mandolin tablature. As a learning aid, a downloadable recording of the author's performance of each piece is available online. We hope these arrangements bring the joy of the Christmas spirit to your holiday season.

?Shepherds? Rocking Carol? is a traditional Czechoslovakian folk tune (?Hajej, nynej, Jezisku?) with lyrics loosely translated by the Anglican clergyman, Percy Dearmer. With Ralph Vaughan Williams, Dearmer was co-editor of The English Hymnal (1906) as well as The Oxford Book of Carols (1928), in which his translation, ?Little Jesus, Sweetly Sleep,? appears with the Czech tune.

This arrangement for young/developing band is an ideal vehicle for the budding oboist, featuring the oboe on melody in the first presentation of the tune and recapitulating at the work?s end. (A clarinet solo / substitute for oboe part is provided.)

Although conservative in range and technical demands, ?Shepherds? Rocking Carol? incorporates a variety of instrumental, dynamic, and harmonic contrasts that make it both simple and elegant, and ideal for developing musicianship in every section of the band.