Description

Important Note: This trumpet duet is also available in the Trumpet Christmas Duets book. It’s a book of 21 Christmas carols arranged for trumpet duet. Click HERE to go buy that book.

Joy to the World

Trumpet Christmas Carol Duet

By Eddie Lewis

The duets in this Christmas carol duets series are a sequel to the Trumpet Hymn Duets series/book that was published in 2020. That series of trumpet duets is fundamentally different from most of my other duets (I’ve written literally hundreds). Typically, when I write trumpet duets, I try to make them clever. Clever duets are fun to play and fun to listen to. But the Trumpet Hymn Duets are not about being clever. On the book cover I say that they are hymns first and trumpet duets second.

We are taking the same approach with these Christmas carol trumpet duets. The objective is to write trumpet duets that are 100% appropriate for traditional, Christina church services. We do this by honoring the mood and harmonies of the original Christmas carols.  They are Christmas carols first, trumpet duets second.

Trumpet Apprentice Skill Level

Even though the highest note on the first part is B natural, we are tagging it as a Trumpet Apprentice skill level duet.  The second part is a Trumpet Player level with the highest note being fourth space E. These are both intermediate skill levels.

The rhythms and intervals in this Joy to the World trumpet duet make it interesting, but also a little challenging. As with most of my trumpet music, I utilize a lot of the lowest register of the instrument and at one point the first trumpet is hopping from low F sharp to D in the staff, an octave and a sixth. This will require skill in the low register and enough control to pop back into the staff without affecting the tone quality.

Practice Recommendations

My first recommendation for practicing this arrangement is that, if you are at all unsure about playing in D concert, then spend some time in my tonalization studies doing the exercises in that key. As a general practice, it doesn’t make sense to use a new piece of music to learn a new key. Learn the key first and then practice the song. Your performances will always be better if you approach key signatures that way.

In a similar sense, practicing arpeggios is also a very good idea. A lot of the melodic movement in these duets is arpeggio based. This is to emphasize the harmonic aspect of the Christmas carols without having to add the other two voices. So having a general skill on arpeggios is certainly a plus.

The Trumpet Apprentice Skill Level

The Trumpet Apprentice skill level is the fourth skill level in our system. This skill level has exercises and music up to B flat above the staff. There are many other considerations in this skill level but that is the most obvious.

To find more music for this specific skill level, search our other publications for the word “Apprentice” in the title or descriptions. We publish books and compositions for students at the Trumpet Apprentice level that we believe your students will truly enjoy.

Joy to the World Free Trumpet Play-Along Video

We have a free trumpet play-along video for Joy to the World in our You Play First Chair video series on YouTube. The YPFC series is intended as an educational tool, giving trumpet players around the world opportunities to work on their sight reading. However, the videos also allow trumpet players to take the songs for a test drive before they buy the sheet music.

Click HERE if you would like to check out the trumpet play-along video for this arrangement of Joy to the World.

Joy to the World Demo Video

Here is a demonstration video of Eddie Lewis playing both parts of Joy to the World.