Piano Sheet Music Frank Sinatra Christmas Collection Ez Play Today
I picked up the Ez Play Today Frank Sinatra Christmas Collection a few years back because I wanted something manageable for holiday gatherings. These books are what they say they are: simplified piano arrangements of well-known songs. The big question isn't whether they work, it's whether they work for your level. Ez Play Today arranges each song across two pages with the melody on the top staff and the harmony/chords on the bottom. The right hand plays the vocal line, left hand handles chords. No fancy counterpoint, no orchestral reductions, just straightforward lead-sheet style formatting. It's designed for intermediate players who want to sound like they know what they're doing without actually having to read full classical scores. The Sinatra Christmas book includes tracks like White Christmas, Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. The arrangements stay fairly close to the original melodies, which matters if you're playing for people who know the songs by heart. Mess up the tune and nobody cares about your beautiful voicings.
I ran into a specific problem with my copy when I tried playing Silver Bells. The arrangement has a chord change in the left hand that doesn't have the bass note clearly written on the first beat of a measure. I thought I was misreading it for about ten minutes before realizing the publisher had simply omitted it. I filled in a G in the bass with my left thumb and it worked fine. That's the kind of thing you just accept and move past.
Who This Is For and Who It Isn't
If you can comfortably read one-octave chords in the left hand and play melodies with simple syncopation, this book will serve you well. It's genuinely good for church musicians who need to learn a seasonal set quickly, or parents who want to accompany carol singers around a piano they haven't touched in years. If you're an advanced player looking for a challenge, skip it. The arrangements are deliberately stripped down. You'll finish learning the entire book in maybe three or four hours of focused practice, which is the point but also the limitation. There's nothing wrong with that, it's just not what you'd want if you're trying to improve your technique. One thing the book doesn't do well is indicate tempo markings or dynamic suggestions. You get the notes, that's it. I find myself occasionally looking up the original Sinatra recording to figure out where the song should breathe, especially on things like The Christmas Song. The arrangement doesn't tell you when to hold a fermata or slow down, so you're working from your own musical judgment there.
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PRACTICAL USE TIPS
Buy a pen. The Ez Play Today books are designed to be annotated, and I always mark chord fingerings and any passages that feel awkward on first try. I spent about twenty minutes going through White Christmas and circling every measure where my left hand jumps more than a fifth. Once I mapped those out, the whole thing took me about forty-five minutes to learn cold. The page turns matter. Some songs run across three pages and there's no designated place to turn without stopping the music. I taped mine into a slightly open position and practiced transitions where the right hand maintains the melody while the left hand stays busy. It takes a little practice but you'll figure it out during a single run-through. If you're performing with a group, these arrangements pair easily with guitar or other instruments since the chord symbols are clearly printed above the staff. I've used this book for impromptu sing-alongs with decent results. The harmony is simplified enough that it doesn't clash with other players figuring things out on the fly.
You can find the Piano Sheet Music Frank Sinatra Christmas Collection Ez Play Today on Amazon, Sheet Music Plus, and sometimes at local music stores. It's not expensive, usually around fifteen to twenty dollars depending on whether you go brand new or look for a used copy. Used copies often have writing in them from previous owners, which honestly can be useful if they're smart annotations. The download options are limited with Ez Play Today. They don't really do digital sheet music through their main line the way some publishers do. If you need something portable or printable in a different size, you're probably better off looking at Hal Leonard's Christmas songbooks or individual arrangements on Musicnotes. But for a physical book you can toss on a piano stand and play through during the holidays without overthinking it, this one does exactly what it promises.
