Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Forum Looking for sheet music suggestions......

I'm looking for sheet music for a jazz rendition of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" along the lines of:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HYqvQBqO2g

I've been to all the regulars (i.e. everynote.com, sheetmusicplus.com etc.) but haven't been able to find anything that approaches what I'm looking for.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks all and Merry Christmas.
Ho Ho Ho,
Roger

Jollyroger,

I think you're missing the point. This is an improvisation. The ability to do this comes from the passion and drive it takes to de-construct the art of composition to the point that you can spontaineously compose and arrange as you play.

By having this written out you're missing the joy of discovery and the opportunity to hear what your own pianistic voice sounds like.

I apologize if I'm sounding "preachy" here. Give playing this piece by ear a try and see what happens!

Happy Holidays

Hello Jonnie,
Thanks for your reply, and yes, I'm aware that this particular rendition is improvised. I wasn't looking for this exact piece, but rather a rendition similar to the style. Much of the sheet music I've looked at is pretty straight forward and I'd like to try an arrangement with rich jazz voicing. I could write one myself, but that would take longer than obtaining sheet music. Unfortunately, I've been too busy at work and graduate school.

As it turns out, I emailed Alfonso Gugliucci who performed this piece (http://www.agstudio.de) to tell him how much I enjoyed it. I was surprised to find that he emailed me back and said if I was interested in learning his rendition, to download the midi version and convert it to score. Quite nice of him, may I add.

Thanks again, and Merry Christmas.
Roger

Many amateur classical pianists like myself can't improvise with any skill but would still like to be able to play pieces like this. That's one of the main reasons there are hundreds of books of jazz transcriptions of famous and not so famous jazz musicians.

Many of the great solos of Tatum, Waller, Johnson, Gershwin, Bill Evans, Oscar Peterson, Dick Hyman etc. have been written down. Why suggest some pianists shouldn't the great enjoyment of playing these?

As a new working dad, I totally understand not having time to become the next Oscar Peterson! Its wonderful that the pianist on YouTube wrote you back.

The idea of playing transcriptions is a wonderful way to learn and I still use these but at some point in the past I was able to break free and play the sounds in my head and I hope that one day you discover what I'm referring to.

Thanks for the response. Happy Holidays!

All,
I must say, this is one of the great things about this forum that I enjoy so much. While I'm still looking for a version of this piece that has a dash of Evans/Previn et al, you never know what may transpire if one doesn't ask questions.
Like pianoloverus, I too play mostly classical.

By simply emailing the author of this piece to tell him how much I enjoyed it, he was kind enough to email me the instructions on how to download a midi version of it. And as this is the holiday season, I can think of no finer way to share the gift of giving than to do it with music.

Therefore, anyone interested in obtaining this particular rendition, here's the instructions:

1.Go to this URL:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HYqvQBqO2g

2. In the upper right hand corner of the screen, you'll see "PianistaItaliano".

3. Underneath that is the date (December 14, 2007).

4. Directly under that you'll see "(more info)". Click on the (more info) URL and you'll see another URL to download the midi.

While I won't have a chance to run this through my Cubase scoring utility for another week or so, I listened to the midi and surprisingly, it sounds better than I thought. But of course, not as good as on the video.

There are free scoring utilities on the web if anyone's interested in seeing this to its logical conclusion. If not, feel free to PM me in another week or so as by then, I should have had a chance to see what this looks like once scored.

Regards & Merry Christmas,
Roger