This includes the new piano solo "The Best White Christmas Medley Ever," the "Softly Christmas" piano book (PDF), as well as the "Christmas" piano book. 18 songs in total!
"Softly Christmas" includes:
- Carol of the Bells Goes Major
- Hark! The Herald Angels Sing to Light the World
- Joy to the Little Drummer Boy
- Twinkle, Twinkle, Stars are Gleaming
- Mary’s Lullaby
- Do You Hear What I Hear?
- Snowflakes Falling
- Silent Night
- The First Noel
- Christmas Bells
- O Holy Night
- Picture of Christmas de Lune
- Jingle Bells
"Christmas" includes:
- Mary in the Manger
- Santa's Bringing Christmas to Town
- Silver Bells
- Still, Still, Silent Night
You can see walkthroughs of many of these songs directly on Jon's YouTube channel. Here is a link to the first song on the "Softly Christmas" album:
Info about the new White Christmas Song:
This new piano medley of favorites from the Christmas classic "White Christmas" will be an exciting performance piece for anybody who decides to take it on. It is also wonderful to just play through and enjoy the tunes from Irving Berlin that were so masterfully composed for the movie.
You can view my personal walkthrough of the piece where I play it through and explain some of the hard sections on YouTube below:
The songs that appear in this medley are:
- "White Christmas"
- "We'll Follow the Old Man"
- "Sisters"
- "Snow"
- "Mandy"
- "Count Your Blessings Instead of Sheep"
- "What Do You Do With A General?"
From Jon:
"I put my heart and soul into this one. "White Christmas" has been a family favorite during the Christmas season since I was born. The tradition is to turn it on while we put up the Christmas tree and decorations, and that tradition has stuck with me in my nearly 40 years of life. The music is so classic, and the performances are really off the chart. The dancing and production of the piece "Mandy" has always impressed me.
As I began working on this medley, it was supposed to just be a quick rendition of the song "White Christmas." But I started thinking about the movie and all of the wonderful memories I had with it growing up, and I had to make it bigger. As I watched the movie again and took notes on the songs and the focus of the medley, I realized that the focus wasn't actually Christmas. It was about the general. General Waverly meant so much to those soldiers that they were willing to sacrifice and devote their time, money, effort, and even their Christmas holiday to thanking him. The movie is about the kind acts towards the general and what happens when you focus on the one. The rest is just context, and it is an amazing, funny, and heartwarming movie that will forever be a part of my Christmas holiday.
This medley moves in chronological order through the movie (unfortunately not hitting all of the songs--unless you want to play through a 25-minute medley!), enjoying Irving Berlin's incredible ability to create showpiece upbeat and jazzy music. I don't think I realized how much jazz was in the movie until I worked through the medley. A lot of the notes in this arrangement are played as "Swing 8ths," so if you aren't familiar with that playing style, this will be great practice!
The piece will offer fun elements for intermediate to advanced pianists with challenging passages for even the most experienced pianists to sight read through. Mastering some of the harder elements won't be too tough for those that follow the notes and watch my walkthrough.
This took me a long time to write and get to this point. I hope you enjoy it! Merry Christmas!"