Play "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" Your Way! (PIYW #4, December 2025)

rsl12

Special Note: For this PIYW, submissions will be posted in Pianotell's Winter Holiday Recital. You can participate in the Holiday Recital either through PIYW (by playing "We Wish You a Merry Christmas") or you can play any other holiday song. Your choice!

PIYW #4: Play "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" Your Way

Play It Your Way is a quasi-monthly event for beginners, professionals, classical, jazz, or pop pianists and everyone in between! This month, we are starting work on "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" (Traditional). Use the links below to find an arrangement or lead sheet you like, and when you are ready, post your performance in the Pianotell Winter Holiday Recital thread. Perfection is not expected!

Previous PIYWs:
Play "Beale Street Blues" Your Way
Play "Pachelbel's Canon" Your Way
Play "Autumn Leaves" Your Way

Thanks to WieWaldi for this month's suggestion! Please suggest pieces for future "Play It Your Way" events by using the suggestion box. The theme of the upcoming PIYW (to be announced in November) is Classical, but feel free to submit good ideas across all genres. (Ideally, the Play It Your Way piece will be playable by many different skill levels, but it doesn't necessarily have to be.)

Guidelines

This is not a contest! It is meant to be a casual and fun event.
A new "Play It Your Way" piece will be announced on the 16th of the following months: Jan, Feb, Apr, May, July, Aug, Oct, Nov.
You can use this thread to discuss your preparation of the piece, or anything else related to PIYW. ~~To submit a recording of your performance, go to the submission thread~~.
All PIYW submissions will remain hidden from public view until December 15. However, there is no deadline for when you need to submit your performance. You may submit a recording at any time, including before and after that date. For this special Holiday edition of PIYW, all PIYW submissions will go into the Holiday Recital Thread.

We Wish You a Merry Christmas (Traditional)

From the Wikipedia article:

The greeting "a merry Christmas and a happy New Year" is recorded from the early eighteenth century; however, the history of the carol itself is unclear. Its origin probably lies in the English tradition wherein wealthy people of the community gave Christmas treats to the carolers on Christmas Eve, such as "figgy pudding" that was very much like modern-day Christmas puddings; in the West Country of England, "figgy pudding" referred to a raisin or plum pudding, not necessarily one containing figs. In the famous version of the song, the singer demands figgy pudding from the audience, threatening to not "go until we get some".

Links to Sheet Music / Lead Sheet

You are not limited to only the arrangements linked below. Feel free to find or create your own.
You do not have to complete or perfect the piece to submit it, and don't be afraid to simplify or shorten the piece.
Improvisation, backing tracks, and backing humans are all allowed.

Easy
Easy/Intermediate
Advanced

ShiroKuro

I played through a version I have, a lower intermediate version in a Hal Leonard collection. It’s fine, do-able, and also dead boring.

rsl12
Easy
Easy/Intermediate
Advanced

Is anyone playing one of the links that rsl12 originally shared?

I just listened and the intermediate version is actually really cool! Although I think it should be played slower than the tempo setting in musescore, it would actually bring out all the fun bits more.

I don’t know if I have time to get that one in my fingers, but maybe I’ll try it.

Rsl12, did you record a different version? (Apologies if I missed it if you mentioned it in one of the posts above)

HeartKeys

We Wish You a Merry Practicing on this song!

Nightowl

I don't like this song so won't be taking part in this event, but I'm sure that lots of people will have fun working on something upbeat, which will be a nice contrast to Autumn Leaves. Good luck everyone. 🙂

rsl12

Nightowl I'm glad you were able to do Autumn Leaves!

rsl12

thepianoplayer416 Do we have anything religious like:
Joy to the World
Silent Night
O Come All Ye Faithful?

Otherwise I like these pieces:
Winter Wonderland
Let It Snow
Rudolf the Red New Reindeer
Frosty the Snowman

The voting is over. We Wish You A Merry Christmas got the most votes. I hope you can participate. See the top post for details.

Nightowl

rsl12 Thanks! 🙂 I surprised myself by taking part in an "extra" recital, but it was worth the effort in the end. Thanks for organising these extra recitals, it must involve quite a bit of extra work but it is appreciated.

Sophia

I'm going to skip this one 🙂 I kinda knew that beforehand already, that is why I didn't participate in the voting either. I already have my November recital recorded, and then I am going to take a much needed break from recitals (not from piano!) until of course the February one - for that one I'll be back in full swing 😃

WieWaldi

This should be an easy one, if someone can do this:

Nightowl

Clever, but somehow annoying too. Not something that I'd watch twice. (Just call me the Christmas Grinch.)

rsl12

I watched it twice! And I found out that the keys he strikes don't match the sound that comes out! Still, he's a better juggler than I'll ever be.

Sophia

rsl12 I kinda thought it was too perfect... I guess they played a rerecorded sound just to make sure. As you said though, still very impressive juggling!

Nightowl

Maybe with the first bit he was actually playing the right notes, then with the second bit the "piano" was muted and he just juggled the balls... his timing still had to be spot on to make it look convincing though.

rsl12

I think the piano is programmed to play the next note(s) in the sequence every time there's a strike. So it's just one big button, and there's at least a little correspondence between the bouncing and the music.

Nightowl

rsl12 Ah yes, that would explain it. You're a clever guy! 🙂

WieWaldi

rsl12 Does this mean, this guy wasn't able to really play it? In this case I was wrong with my assumption this piece is an easy one?!?
That explains why I am not making any progress in learning. Damn – I am so doomed.

rsl12

WieWaldi if my theory is right, you could buy the bounce piano and, with your two feet, jump faster than he juggles (or if you really want to impress us, go even faster by using your 10 toes).

I spent the last week trying out different approaches. Here are two that I think I will abandon, even though they are good ideas and I'd love to hear someone else try these approaches:

gospel

professor longhair

The approach that I'm currently most interested in is using it as a modulation exercise. The rhythmic, melodic, and harmonic repitition give a lot of modulation choices, and I could use more practice changing keys on the fly. But if this approach yields nothing musical, I will fall back on the straightforward approach: playing and singing the way I would for a general audience.

Simonb

Hi rsl12

Prof Longhair plays We Wish You A Merry Christmas....
Now there's a challenge!

Might just give it a try.

Cheers

WieWaldi

rsl12 Both are nice, anyway:

Long live the Blues!

Longhair sounds more groovy, because it is Longhair.
But the Gospel version fits better to Christmas mood, I would go for that.

rsl12

Simonb Prof Longhair plays We Wish You A Merry Christmas....
Now there's a challenge!

Might just give it a try.

I hope you do. I think it could be very good!

rsl12

WieWaldi Longhair sounds more groovy, because it is Longhair.
But the Gospel version fits better to Christmas mood, I would go for that.

I like both. One for church, one for a party.

Does it bother you that the Blues Brothers are not dancing to 4/4 or 12/8, and therefore not dancing to a blues? (It's 6/4, but I don't know a 6/4 song that works. If it's a sloppy 5/4, then they are dancing to "Take Five").