We Three Kings Trumpet Duet

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.

We Three Kings of Orient Are

Christmas Trumpet Duet

John H. Hopkins, Arr. Eddie Lewis

We Three Kings Trumpet Duet

We Three Kings trumpet duet is from our Christmas Carol Trumpet Duets series. The most distinguishable characteristic of this arrangement is the grace notes on the second and fifth eighth-notes in the second verse.

The arrangement opens with a simple statement of the Christmas carol. It is in the style of my Unadorned Trumpet Hymns that I publish on my YouTube channel. It is a very calming and harmonious style of arranging hymns and Christmas carols.

The second verse is the verse with the grace notes. These grace notes were added to give the arrangement just a hint of an “oriental” sound. The Christmas carol is supposed to be about kings from the east, so I thought that would be a nice, artistic touch.

The third verse introduces fanfares to the melodic structure, leading to the climax of the arrangement. The fanfare sections are mostly arpeggios and represent the royalty of the kings and how they pay their homage to the King of Kings.

The arrangement ends with a tag of the last two bars of the melody.

Trumpet Christmas Duet Series

This We Three Kings trumpet duet arrangement is the next duet in a series of Trumpet Christmas Duets. The Christmas Trumpet Duets is like part two of the Trumpet Hymn Duets series (which is now also a book). There is a very specific format behind the arrangement that I’ve adhered to for almost every duet in the series (the exception for the Christmas duets is Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence).

You can browse other duets in this series by clicking the following button:

Christmas Trumpet Duets

When we reach twenty-one of these duets, we will begin to look at publishing them in a book like we did with the first twenty-one Trumpet Hymn Duets. Then I will go back to writing more of the hymns again. We put our emphasis on the Christmas carols because so many people requested them.

Skill Level

In our skill level system, We Three Kings trumpet duet is at the Trumpet Player skill level. This is the third skill level in our system, the first of two intermediate skill levels.

It’s important to stress here that the skill level does not imply an ability to sight read the arrangement. Students at the Trumpet Player skill level will need to practice this duet before performing it. This is because some of the grace notes and fanfares are a-typical and will catch most Player level students off guard.

Practice Recommendations

The first thing I will point out is that the grace notes beginning on D should be fingered 1-3 to 3, instead of 1-3 to 1-2. The grace notes will not sound very graceful playing the E 1-2.

This duet will be a lot easier for trumpet players who practice arpeggios on a regular basis. That’s why we practice arpeggios, so we can execute them automatically when they come up in our music.

We Three Kings Trumpet Duet Score Video

The following is a score video for We Three Kings. We offer these score videos so you have an opportunity to see and hear the piece before you buy it.