We’d like to highlight some arrangements that are perfect for the winter holidays. Scoring varies by song, so for your convenience we’ve remarked what individual arrangement is.

• Sleigh Runners for Brass Quintet with optional percussion
• A medley of What Child Is This? / Coventry Carol for Brass Quartet
• We Three Kings for Brass Quintet with optional Tuba intro
• Jingle Bells for a French Horn Quartet
• O Come All Ye Faithful for a French Horn Quartet

For more arrangements, be sure to visit our selection of sheet music for Canadian Brass. It’s perfect for the holidays!

Popular New Songs from Your Requests!

We have a few songs that went up this week that you’ve asked for. Jump Then Fall by Taylor Swift and Change by Carrie Underwood are two, recent songs that several of you were asking for. We’ve also received Broadway sheet music for THE LAST FIVE YEARS. Composed by acclaimed songwriter Jason Robert Brown; you can sing or play twelve songs from this unique one-act musical experience.

15 Percent Off Coupon for Your Next Christmas Musicnotes Edition Purchase

Are you interested in getting the best value on Christmas sheet music this year? Then you’ll want to take advantage of this money-saving coupon that includes our Christmas Musicnotes Editions. Whenever you see that little, green note, you’ll know you’re getting a phenomenal value because our Musicnotes Editions allow you to print unlimited copies of your sheet music and you’re granted both performance and recording rights for the piece! The average price of our Musicnotes Editions is $4.95, and the coupon is good for 15 percent off your entire purchase. No minimum purchase is required!

Christmas Musicnotes Editions include arrangements for vocalists, pianists and choirs. We’re also arranging and offering Christmas Musicnotes Editions for C, E♭, and B♭ instruments, too!

%15 OFF!	Stretch your fingers and dust off your keys! From now through December 25, 2009, Save 15 Percent off of your next digital sheet music purchase. Simply enter in MNEDITION when you check out and enjoy a %15 off savings on any digital music download from our Musicnotes Edition catalog. Limit one coupon per customer.
Offer Expires: Midnight, December 25th, 2009  – Use coupon code MNEDITION when you shop at Musicnotes.com and enjoy 15 Percent off any digital purchase that includes a Musicnotes Edition. Includes sheet music, guitar tab or Guitar Guru Session.

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Special Reminders from Musicnotes.com

Just to let you know, we have two special promotions ending on Monday, November 30th. First, our Save Up to Thirty Percent Off Select Christmas Sheet Music Books and Songbooks Sale will wrap up on that day, so if you haven’t checked them out, be sure to do that this week. Second, if you want to enter our Winter Holiday Song Suggestion Contest only entries entered through midnight, November 30th will be considered for the contest.

We hope you have a wonderful weekend and be sure to stay tuned for more updates!

Songs in this list include brand new selections like Winter Snow by Chris Tomlin as well as holiday sheet music favorites like Mary, Did You Know?. For your convenience, we’ve listed the song titles in alphabetical order so you can easily skim through this list of contemporary Christian Christmas songs. Which of these songs do you enjoy listening to? Have you learned to play or sing any of the songs in our list?

1. A Cradle Prayer by Rebecca St. James

2. A Prayer For Every Year by Plus One

3. A Strange Way to Save the World by Rob Blaney

4. All is Well by Michael W. Smith

5. All My Heart Rejoices by Steve Green

6. Angels We Have Heard on High by Point of Grace, Chris Tomlin and many more!

7. Be It Unto Me by Craig & Dean Phillips

8. Breath of Heaven (Mary’s Song) by Amy Grant

9. Celebrate the Child by Michael Card

10. Child of Bethlehem by Wayne Watson

11. Child of Peace by Sandi Patty

12. Christmas Day by Michael W. Smith

13. Christmas is in the Heart by Steven Curtis Chapman

14. Christmas to Remember by Amy Grant

15. Emmanuel, God With Us by Amy Grant

16. Gloria by Michael W. Smith

17. Medley of Go, Tell It on the Mountain / Joyful, Joyful We Adore Thee / Ain’t-a That Good News by BarlowGirl

18. Going Home for Christmas by Steven Curtis Chapman

19. Good News by Kathy Mattea

20. Hallelujah (Light Has Come by BarlowGirl

21. Happy Birthday, Jesus by the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir

22. I Celebrate the Day by Relient K

23. Immanuel by Michael Card

24. It’s the Thought by Twila Paris

25. Jesus is Born by Steve Green

26. Joseph’s Song by Michael Card

27. Joy (To the World) by Avalon

28. Little Town by Amy Grant, Point of Grace

29. Mary, Did you Know? by Kathy Mattea and several others

30. No Eye Had Seen by Michael W. Smith, Amy Grant

31. Not That Far From Bethlehem by Point of Grace

32. O Come, O Come Emmanuel by BarlowGirl, Steven Curtis Chapman and more!

33. One King by Point of Grace

34. One Small Child by David Meece

35. Precious Promise by Steven Curtis Chapman

36. Rose of Bethlehem by Steve Green

37. Sing Mary Sing by Jennifer Knapp

38. Still Her Little Child by Ray Boltz

39. Sweet Little Jesus Boy by Rebecca St. James

40. Tennessee Christmas by Point of Grace

41. The Christmas Hope by NewSong

42. The Christmas Shoes by NewSong

43. The Last Christmas Without You by Sixpence None the Richer

44. The Night That Christ Was Born by Kirk Franklin

45. This Baby by Steven Curtis Chapman

46. This Gift by Point of Grace

47. This Little Child by Scott Wesley Brown

48. To the Mystery by Michael Card

49. Unto Us (Isaiah 9) by Sandi Patty

50. Winter Snow by Chris Tomlin

For more ideas about songs to play for the holidays, be sure to visit our Christmas sheet music page.

The site, which recently sold its six millionth download, is approaching 200,000 paid downloads per month and is receiving 120,000 visitors to the site daily.  A meaningful percentage of this growth in sales and traffic is due to Musicnotes’ international business, which now accounts for more than 20% of sales and is growing at a faster rate than overall business.

As a result of the continually growing sales, Musicnotes is also approaching $15 million in total royalties paid to its publishing partners since 2000, with almost $4 million alone expected to be paid in 2009.

Musicnotes attributes its growth to a continued focus on improving the customer experience as well as its continually expanding catalogue of downloadable sheet music, including songs from several significant content deals signed in 2009.

“What we find most interesting is that we are seeing this level of growth without any new “hit” songs,” said Bill Aicher, Musicnotes Web and Marketing Director. “Less than 4% of our sales are coming from our top ten downloads.  This growth is really coming from across the entire spectrum of our catalog.”

According to the most recent data from research firm, Hitwise, Musicnotes.com continues to lead the digital sheet music retail market with a market share of over 80%.

About Musicnotes: Musicnotes, Inc. offers an online catalog of 100,000 digital sheet music titles, built on the strength of content agreements with Alfred Publishing, EMI Music Publishing, Faber Music Ltd, Sony/ATV Publishing, Universal Music Publishing Group, Disney Music Publishing, Cherry Lane Music Company, Peermusic, Word Music, EMI Christian, Bug Music and many others. Musicnotes is included in Internet Retailer Magazine’s list of the Top 500 Online Retailers and was recently selected by Internet Retailer as a “Hot 100″ site for 2009.

We are happy to announce that we’re now able to offer sheet music for NEXT TO NORMAL. This Broadway show about a family trying to deal with a mother’s bipolar disorder has been extremely popular, and has continued to be a highly requested collection of songs.

Now you can play or sing songs from a wide selection of Broadway sheet music from this Tony award-winning show. Some of the more popular songs include: Superboy and the Invisible Girl, I’m Alive and Light. Thank you to everyone who requested sheet music for NEXT TO NORMAL. We hope you enjoy these arrangements from this Broadway show.

For those of you who love movie sheet music, we’re proud to announce two films that are debuting on Musicnotes.com. The first film is the animated movie UP, about an older gentleman named Carl who takes the adventure of a lifetime. We are now offering movie sheet music downloads for Disney’s UP, which includes songs like Married Life and Stuff We Did. Feel free to browse through our selection of sheet music from UP if you’re looking for a different song.

Do you love science fiction movies? Here at Musicnotes.com, over the years we’ve had epic musical battles between Star Trek and Star Wars sheet music. We’ve added several new instrumental solos including CLONE WARS sheet music in our effort to provide fans with the music you want to play. This week, we’ve added STAR TREK sheet music. Let the music fill the air and let a new space battle…BEGIN!

Winter Song Suggestion Contest Reminder

Special thanks to everyone who entered our Winter Song Suggestion contest so far. Just as a reminder, there’s still time left if you would like to enter for your chance to win a $25.00 gift certificate to Musicnotes.com! Simply go to our Suggest a Winter Holiday Song Contest, read the instructions, and enter! It’s really easy! GOOD LUCK!

Sheet Music for Songs You’ve Requested

In addition to new movie and Broadway sheet music, we’ve also added a few songs that come straight from your song requests. They are:

• Everybody In Love (Put Your Hands Up) by JLS
• Satellite Heart by Any Marina from NEW MOON
• Slice by Five for Fighting
• Sans Day Carol (The St. Day Carol)> for Choir
• Everyday by Carly Comando

The song Everyday was composed for this YouTube! video of Noah, who took a picture of himself every day for six years and then set it to music. Garnering over 14 million views, this video set to music is a shining example of how there truly is a song for everyone. We are thrilled to fulfill this unique song request, and hope that you enjoy being a part of this unusual sheet music experience.

This year, Musicnotes.com is pleased to present you with a broader selection of arrangements for Christmas songs that you can sing along to. We have quite a few Singer Pro arrangements of Christmas songs that you can browse through like this popular medley of Carol of the Bells and Sing We Now of Christmas by BarlowGirl.

For those of you in a choir, we’ve added several new choral arrangements of Christmas sheet music and will have more on the way. Choose from traditional Christmas carols like the Hallelujah Chorus or popular holiday songs like Believe by Josh Groban in a choral arrangement.

If you’re looking for more traditional Christmas carols or Christmas solos for vocalists, we have hundreds of songs to choose from. Our broad selection of Christmas sheet music for vocalists highlights several music styles including hymns, traditional carols, contemporary holiday songs and more!

This year, let your voice ring clear and pick a song that’s right for you. Choose from songs like:

• Santa Baby
• Happy Holiday
• Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
• Toyland
• The Christmas Song
• Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town
• I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day
• God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen

For more holiday songs, be sure to visit our Christmas sheet music page. Be sure to read our post about Deciphering Singer Pro Sheet Music and Finding Your Vocal Range if you have any questions about how to find the song that’s right for you.

So what are you waiting for? Find your favorite holiday song and sing, sing, sing!!!

Browse our Christmas sheet music books on sale to see what we have available. We offer a variety of Christmas sheet music books on sale including: Christian, rock-n-roll, traditional, contemporary, artist-or-movie related and many more! We will be updating this page frequently, so be sure to bookmark it to see if anything interests you and enjoy some great savings!

If available, many of these books, like The Muppet Christmas Carol offer individual digital sheet music downloads, too. So if you see a song you like, you can simply click on it from the songbook information. The Muppet Christmas Carol songbook features eleven new Muppet Christmas carols and full color photos. This particular book offers songs from the 1992 film.

Released in 1992, it is one of many film adaptations of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. The movie follows Ebenezer Scrooge who is a cruel and ruthless money lender. His immoral business practices cause bring a lot of hardship to London’s Camden town, the film’s setting. During the night of Christmas Eve Scrooge is visited by three ghosts; the ghost of Christmas past, present and future. He discovers the errors of his ways and becomes an honest and charitable man. The film is a musical with seven songs in the original theatrical release.–SOURCE: Wikipedia

Here are the songs printed in this kid-friendly Christmas songbook for The Muppet Christmas Carol sheet music.

• Scrooge performed by Cast
• Room in Your Heart performed by Dr. Bunsen Honeydew and Beaker
• One More Sleep ’til Christmas performed by Kermit
• Marley and Marley performed by Statler and Waldorf
• Chairman of the Board performed by Sam the Eagle
• It Feels Like Christmas performed by Ghost of Christmas Present
• Christmas Scat performed by Kermit and Tiny Tim
• Bless Us All performed by Tiny Tim and Family
• Thankful Heart performed by Mr. Scrooge
• When Love is Found/It Feels Like Christmas (Finale) performed by Mr. Scrooge, Tiny Tim, Ghost of Christmas Present and Cast
• When Love is Gone sung by Martina McBride

We hope you enjoy this limited-time savings on a variety of Christmas sheet music books through Musicnotes.com! For more Christmas sheet music ideas, be sure to browse our sale on Christmas sheet music books on sale or our selection of Christmas sheet music to see what we have available.

Simply suggest a winter holiday song that we do not have digital sheet music for on Musicnotes.com, for your chance to win a twenty-five dollar gift certificate to our online store! You can use the gift certificate to purchase anything you need including: Christmas sheet music, Guitar Guru Sessions, Chanukah sheet music and much, much more!

Our Suggest a Winter Holiday Song Contest starts today and will run through midnight on November 30th.

We’d like to present you with a few contest rules for our Suggest a Winter Holiday Song Contest. They are:

1. Where to Recommend Your Song: You must post your song suggestion with a title, composer and/or performer as a comment on this blog post with a valid email address. Any other requests will not be considered as part of this contest. The valid email address will only be used to notify you if you won a gift certificate, and is not publicly displayed when you comment on our blog.

2. What Songs We Will/Will Not Consider: We will consider any song suggestion related to a winter or a winter holiday. Some popular winter holidays include Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanzaa, etc. In order to be considered for the contest, the song that you recommend must not be on Musicnotes.com currently in digital sheet music format. Also, there is one song we are currently arranging that is not on Musicnotes.com. That song is African Noel.

3. How Winners Will be Notified: Musicnotes.com will review entries and award the gift certificates by December 15th, 2009. Songs recommended will be added to the site by December 25th, 2009. We will notify you via email that you have won. Please be advised that only entries made from now through November 30th, 2009 are eligible for the contest.

To avoid confusion, winners will also be awarded on a first-come/first-serve basis. In other words, if two people request the same song, we will award the certificate to the first commenter with a valid email address. You may enter as many times as you like for your chance to win. No purchase necessary.

Please note: Several of you are recommending additional arrangements of songs we already have on Musicnotes.com in digital sheet music format. Please be aware that only new songs are being considered for the contest.

Simply think of a winter holiday song, search Musicnotes.com to ensure that we don’t have already have it. Then, recommend the title, composer and/or performer in the comments below for your chance to win today! Be sure to stop back or bookmark the page and check the comments, too!

For our free piano sheet music download, we are featuring a holiday medley of the songs Jolly Old St. Nicholas and Up on the Housetop.

Jolly Old St. Nicholas is a traditional Christmas carol that may have been composed in the early 1900s. The simple lyrics are about someone wishing for St. Nick to come and leave them presents in their stockings. Up on the Housetop (Ho! Ho! Ho!) is an older traditional Christmas carol from the 1860s. Composed by Benjamin Hanby, this popular tune is also about Santa coming down the chimney to fill the stockings of little kids with presents. Combined, the two carols together create a fun, holiday medley that we hope you’ll enjoy singing and playing.

This holiday medley is available as a free sheet music download from now until the end of November. We have provided abridged lyrics as part of the medley, so you can sing our arrangement as a solo or with your family and friends!

Guitar Guru Lovers! Download the Russian Dance for Free!

This month’s free Guitar Guru Session and guitar tab, is a movement from The Nutcracker Suite composed by Tchaikovsky. The Russian Dance, which is also known as Trepak, was composed as part of the ballet in the early 1890s.

Now you can learn how to play the Russian Dance from The Nutcracker Ballet on guitar for free, through the month of November. Simply visit our free sheet music page to download this seasonal arrangement. We hope you enjoy it!

New Songs from YOUR Requests!

We have been hard at work adding a ton of new songs that you’ve asked for. First, we’d like to point out that we are expanding our selection of alternate instruments solos. This week, we added a ton of popular flute sheet music solos by some of your favorite artists. We’ve also added quite a few fun songs for guitar, including new guitar tab by Taylor Swift.

Here are some new songs we’ve added from the songs that you’ve requested:

• For Emma by Bon Iver
• Chances by Five for Fighting
• I Know It’s Today by Jeanine Tesori
• Guitar Guru Session for Cold as Ice by Foreigner
• So This Is Love by Cinderella
• Does It Still McFly? by Michael Giacchino and other songs from the new STAR TREK.
• Come Back to Me by David Cook
• Haven’t Met You Yet by Michael Buble

Contest News! Guitar Guru Headset Give-a-Way and New Contest!

For the month of November, be sure to check out our Suggest a Winter Holiday Song Contest for a chance to win a $25 gift certificate to Musicnotes.com!

We’ve contacted our Guitar Guru headset winner for October’s contest. Thank you to everyone who entered for a chance to win.

Until next time, remember… practice really does make perfect!

We came up with twenty piano solos that we think are pretty scary. Many of these are by your favorite classical sheet music composers including Ludwig Van Beethoven, Edvard Grieg and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

When we were looking into our collection of sheet music for these scary piano solos, we realized that many of these compositions are in minor keys. Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, for example, is extremely scary when played on the organ.

The complexity of the arrangements we have listed here ranges from easy piano to advanced. Which of these scary piano solos have you played? Which do you want to learn how to play?

• Toccata and Fugue in D Minor by J.S. Bach Digital sheet music
• Danse Macabre by C. Saint-Saens Digital sheet music
• Hungarian Dance No. 5 by J. Brahms Digital sheet music
• William Tell Overture by G. Rossini Digital sheet music
• Totentanz by F. Listz Sheet music book
• Funeral March (for French Horn and Piano) by E. Grieg Sheet music book
• Lacrymosa (from Requiem) by W. Mozart Digital sheet music
• Sonata No 17 in D Minor, Op 31, No 2 (Tempest) by L.V. Beethoven Sheet music book
• Pictures at an Exhibition by M.P. Mussorgsky Sheet music book
• Piano Sonata No. 1 Op. 22 by A. Ginastera Sheet music book
• Opus 31, Prelude No. 8 by C.V. Alkan Sheet music book
• The Isle of the Dead, Op. 29 by S. Rachmaninoff Sheet music book
• Sonata No. 9 by A.N. Scriabin Sheet music book
• Funeral March of a Marionette by C.F. Gounod Digital sheet music
• Theme Song from The Sorcerer’s Apprentice by P. Dukas Digital sheet music
• Sonata in C Minor Pathetique by L.V. Beethoven Digital sheet music
• Moonlight Sonata 1. Adagio Sostenuto by L.V. Beethoven Digital Sheet Music
• In the Hall of the Mountain King by E. Grieg Digital Sheet Music
• Symphony No 5 by L.V. Beethoven Digital sheet music
• Shadow Dance Op. 39, No. 8 by E.A. Macdowell Digital sheet music

With music and lyrics written by Joss Whedon, the songs offer a range of styles from jazz to rock to Broadway. Now, you can download digital sheet music for Once More With Feeling. Here are some of the more memorable songs from this popular episode:

• I’ll Never Tell which was sung by Xander and Anya
• Going Through the Motions was sung by Buffy, but was also sung as a reprise.
• Rest In Peace was sung by the vampire Spike to Buffy.
• Under Your Spell was sung by Tara to Willow
• Standing was sung by Giles
• Walk Through the Fire was sung by the cast from Buffy the Vampire Slayer

In addition to songs from this musical episode, we also have more sheet music from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, including the theme song.

Hit Songs from Your Song Requests

We are pleased to announce that we’ve added these brand new songs straight from your song requests from some wonderful performers!

• Fallin’ for You by Colbie Caillat
• Doesn’t Mean Anything by Alicia Keys
• Cowboy Casanova by Carrie Underwood
• Wild Horses by Susan Boyle
• Winter Snow by Chris Tomlin
• Bridal March by Jonathan Cain
• Happy by Leona Lewis
• Empire State of Mind by Jay-Z with Alicia Keys

Stay tuned for more news about your song requests and Christmas sheet music. We’ve heard that some of you are already practicing Christmas carols, and we want to ensure that we get you the sheet music you need to sing or play for this year’s holiday season!

ONE WEEK LEFT! Take $1.00 Off Your Next Digital Music Purchase