When Christmas approaches, flute teachers often have the opportunity to combine their students into an ensemble that will perform at a school concert.The ideal repertoire for this occasion contains Christmas carols, and my students are usually very eager to participate.Because they are so motivated at this time, they will often practise much more enthusiastically in order to achieve mastery over the tunes, even if it means that they will need to navigate a steep learning curve.

There are a few Christmas carols towards the end of Let’s Play Flute that are fine for use in school concerts, but some students may not yet be able to read the notes.So here is an arrangement of Jingle Bells, with letter names inside the note-heads.

Some students will not only be unable to read the notes, they won’t even be able to play them or learn them before the concert date. They will nevertheless be very disappointed if you exclude them from the performance, so I’ve notated an easy harmony part, again with letter names, that contains just four notes.

 

Cheers!Andrew