CHRISTMAS CAROL ACCOMPANIMENTS
As the result of an initiative by the West Wales Area of the Royal School of Church Music to provide material for churches with meagre musical resources, the Christmas carols listed below are available for download and free use in a variety of forms:
- just the accompaniment
- a choir singing to the accompaniment
- the vocal score in PDF format
The MP3 files of these carol arrangements can be downloaded, loaded onto an MP3 player (or burned onto a CD), and played over a suitable sound system. A 'ghetto blaster' will do for the pub - or even in church at a pinch, although most parishes can rustle up a spare domestic hi-fi. And it's not too expensive to fit a good-quality professional sound system.
Copyright
It's important to respect copyright and performing rights, and not to play any recordings for which the building isn't licensed. However, all these Christmas carols have been specially arranged from non-copyright sources for FREE use in worship or for charitable purposes.
What can you do?
You can download just the accompaniment, load it onto an MP3 player or burn it onto a CD, and play it into your carol service (or outside the supermarket, down the pub, or round the village) and sing to it.
You can download the choir singing to the accompaniment, and use that to sing along to.
You can also download a vocal score of the carols, photocopy it, and give it to your choir to sing from.
You can download notes about most of the carols from which you can put together an introduction, or which you can use to hone the performance.
All the above is assuming you're doing this in the context of worship or in aid of charity.
So - happy Christmas - and happy carolling!
These are the available carols (more may be added later)
(The MP3 files range in size from 0.5 MB to about 2.7 MB)
Where no link is active the resource is not yet available
Away in a manger accompaniment / + choir* / vocal score
Boar's Head Carol (unaccompanied) / choir* / vocal score
Deck the hall with boughs of holly accompaniment / + choir* / vocal score
Ding dong! merrily on high accompaniment / + choir*/ vocal score
First nowell, The accompaniment / + choir* / vocal score
Gaudete! Christus est natus accompaniment / + choir* / vocal score
Go tell it on the mountain accompaniment / + choir* / vocal score
Good King Wenceslas accompaniment / + choir* / vocal score
Hark! the herald angels sing accompaniment / + choir* / vocal score
Holly and the ivy, The accompaniment / + choir* / vocal score
Infant holy accompaniment / + choir* / vocal score
Jesus, good above all other accompaniment / + choir* / vocal score
Joy to the world! accompaniment / + choir* / vocal score
O come, all ye faithful accompaniment / + choir* / vocal score
Once in royal David's city accompaniment / + choir* / vocal score
Quelle est cette odeur agréable? accompaniment / + choir / vocal score
Seven joys of Mary, The accompaniment / + choir* / vocal score
Silent night accompaniment / + choir** / vocal score
Tawel nos accompaniment / + choir* / vocal score
This is the truth sent from above accompaniment / + choir** / vocal score
Virgin Mary had a baby boy, The accompaniment / + choir* / vocal score
While shepherds watched accompaniment / + choir** / vocal score
*Sung by Saint Cledwyn's Singers
**Sung by Centrepoint
All tracks accompanied by members of I Virtualosi
Notes on most of the carols can be downloaded in MS Word format here
A congregational words booklet of these and some other carols can be downloaded in MS Word format here