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syracuse-singers / xmas

Syracuse Caroling
https://syracuse-singers.github.io/xmas/
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Christmas Carols

A group of singers in Syracuse, NY have been singing carols over the holidays for over 20 years. This site exists mostly as a way to share our favorite songs with each other. Keys and settings represent the preferences of the Syracuse group. Songs may be set for unison singing or parts depending on our preference and/or the availability of suitable arrangements.

These are not the carols you generally hear on the radio or in shopping malls. We largely draw on English pub carols, songs from English folk musicians, as well as a few newer carols that have a traditional feel. You'll quickly figure out that not all of these are strictly speaking Christmas carols, but also include Christmas-adjacent winter songs, such as Wassails (New Years Eve or Epiphany), Molly or Longsword calling on songs (Plough Monday), Wren songs (December 26), and even carols for the Feast Day of the Ass (January 14).

Complete Songbook Files

We ask members of the local caroling group to print out a complete new songbook using one of the files below to, literally, get us all on the same page. The pages are timestamped "Dec 8, 2021" in the footer – the last time these files were updated – so you can easily tell what version you are using.

There are two versions of the songbook PDFs – the only difference being how they are paginated. The "print version" includes a table of contents and the occasional extra blank page so multi-page songs lay out nicely when you print double-sided. The "tablet version" includes bookmarks in the PDF, arranged in song title order, to help with navigation.

We all should be using one of these two versions for now. If you have a page with an older date, you might be out of sync with everybody else. There will be a few copies of the songbook printed out and available at our caroling practices – just ask!

Index

This list of songs was prepared for the 2021 caroling season. All of the songs listed here are also found in the complete songbook linked above, so there's no need to print them a second time if you have the songbook. Carols marked by the New icon are provisional. Some are carols we have never sung as a group and a few are updated settings. As such, they haven't all been vetted by the group and are likely not to be in their final form.

  1. Apple Tree Wassail
  2. Arise And Hail The Joyful Day
  3. Back Lane New
  4. The Boar's Head
  5. The Boys Carol
  6. Chanukah / Solstice
  7. Chariots New
  8. Come, See the Boys Go Round New
  9. Copper's Christmas Song New
  10. The Cutty Wren
  11. Death Or Glory Wassail New
  12. Down In Yon Forest
  13. Gaudete New
  14. Gloucestershire Wassail
  15. Good King Wenceslaus
  16. Gower Wassail
  17. The Holly And The Ivy (Karpeles tune)
  18. Horsham Tipteerers Carol (Sussex Mummers Carol) New
  19. Hunting The Cutty Wren
  20. Hunting The Wren
  21. I Am Christmas New
  22. In Praise Of Christmas
  23. In The Bleak Midwinter
  24. Liverpool New
  25. Lo, How A Rose E'er Blooming
  26. Macaronic Carol
  27. O Little One Sweet
  28. O Little Town of Bethlehem (Forest Green tune) New
  29. Orientus Partibus
  30. Over The Hill Over The Dale
  31. Please To See The King
  32. Rolling Downward
  33. Rumsey Road Wassail
  34. Shepherds Arise
  35. Sherburne C.M.
  36. Somerset Wassail
  37. Wintertime
  38. The Wren Song

Complete Carol Repository

See the master carol repository for the complete list of song files. Via the repository, can download the abc song masters individually or download the entire repository in one largish zip file. You can find past versions of tunes. The repository includes songs we have dropped from our repertoire and which are no longer indexed on the webpage.

Information About This Collection

The songs in this archive are written in abc music notation and then converted to staff notation, first as a PostScript file using Jef Moine's abcm2ps music program and then, using the MacOS Preview program, to PDF format.

Each year, as we meet to practice, we make additions, corrections, key changes, and other alterations to a song's setting. In addition, new carols – marked by the New icon – may be uploaded to the website before a final setting is approved by the group. The result is that some of the carols end up in a state of flux as we work on them. We actually find this situation to be slightly maddening, especially when we find ourselves working from different versions of the same carol because not everybody keeps their songbook up to date.

To help mitigate this, individual tunes have a date and timestamp in the footer as a way to reference the most recent version. You can track changes (beginning in 2017) in the repository's issues page or via the repository's commit history. We also maintain a kanban style project board where you can follow the progress on songs we're working on or considering.

Copyright

We are using a Creative Commons CC-BY license, which, in this case, means that we allow the songs to be used and remixed as long as there is an attribution back to where you got the arrangement. Most of these songs are public domain, but there may be a few songs that are still under copyright. If you are the copyright holder, create an issue in GitHub and let us know how you would like us to handle things.