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06 December 2005

AskMecha: Christmas Carols with Guitar Chords A student in a rock band asked me to bring music for her to accompany the rest of the class in singing carols.

I know not what I seek. Please help.
first on the google search
searching anything in with "tab" in the field will find what you need in the most basic way
must go sweat the shop now, those children don't beat themselves
posted by ethylene 06 December | 03:20
So those little letters here and there above the lyrics is really all they need? Okie dokie. Thanks. (^_^;)
posted by MightyNez 06 December | 05:53
The best and easiest charts to read will simply have capital letters written abouve the text of the song. These tell your guitarist what "chords" to play and can be copied for the singers so everyone is literally singing off the same page.

The Guitar Hymns collection looks well presented and accurate, if a bit small. Also, the chord changes move quite fast. You can copy the text from those pages and reduce the font size so that the lines don't break incorrectly and you are good to go. Make sure the font stays as "Courier" as that helps to keep the guitar chords properly placed above the syllables of text.

I will keep looking as I need some carol charts myself. Check back later if you have a chance.
posted by Cryptical Envelopment 06 December | 20:54
I forgot to mention that there are some nice simple charts at Heartwood Guitar, a site I often use as a teaching resource. Scroll right to the bottom for the carols. The chords are not always properly lined up above the text but they are good arrangements and your guitarist can hopefully figure them out.
posted by Cryptical Envelopment 06 December | 20:58
There are quite a few here but the quality and formats are very inconsistent. Perhaps you can forward the link to the player and she can decide what might be useful from that batch. I respectfully disagree with ethylene's suggestions to search for "tabs". Tablature is very focussed on guitar transcriptions and technique and there are too many crappy "tab" sites out there to sift through. I have been searching for "chords". It is still a tough slog. It's surprising how hard it is to find free carol charts online given how they are almost all (the classics anyway) public domain. I'll keep looking as this is something I want to have for my students and myself.
posted by Cryptical Envelopment 06 December | 21:11
The "Print" links on this page offer what appear to be decent single-page PDFs of some popular carols (I've quickly played through a few and they sound good). They are keyboard scores with the guitar chords above. No texts but those shouldn't be hard to find from other sources.
posted by Cryptical Envelopment 06 December | 21:28
And ChristmasCarolMusic.org looks to be the best. I noticed it earlier but the garish design threw me off! :-) I'd suggest starting with the PDFs on that site--click on a carol title and then click the icon for "sheet music (melody and chords)" to get the PDF. If you need more you can try the other links I posted earlier.

Thanks for inspiring me to do this search at last. Merry Christmas!
posted by Cryptical Envelopment 06 December | 21:44
And apologies to ethylene, I didn't see that you had already linked to the About.com list. Given the nature of the request I thought it best to try to be foolproof. Always a profitable venture when looking for free stuff on the WWW. :-(
posted by Cryptical Envelopment 06 December | 21:46
Thank you muchly!
posted by MightyNez 07 December | 00:42
25 years later, Lennon's death still lingers for men who were there || *yawn*

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