OLittleTownOfBethlehem

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We will be adding more tablature arrangements ...please visit again

“O Little Town of Bethlehem”

– Phillips Brooks, Lewis H. Redner (1868)

Phillips Brooks was an Episcopal priest from the Boston area, who was inspired by a visit to Jerusalem and Bethlehem and later wrote the verses that became the lyrics to this beautiful carol. His friend, Lewis Redner, was the church organist who composed the music for these verses on Christmas Eve in 1868. The carol was first sung by a children’s choir the following morning.

Modal tunings do not do justice to this music. For one thing, there are “accidentals” in the first and last lines of the melody (F naturals). These notes are missing in the key of D. Furthermore, the chord accompaniment we usually hear when the music is played on an organ or piano involves chords with chromatic notes. Notice the F# and F#7 chords in the third line of this arrangement. These require the note, A#, found on the second fret of the middle string of the dulcimer, thanks to our D-F#-A tuning. With this tuning you can finally hear the carol as you remember it!

This tablature is available in the following formats:

TablEdit: "O Little Town of Bethlehem" - .TEF

Adobe .PDF

Printable Webpage

.JPG Format (be sure to set your printer to "fit to page")

Midi File


	If you do not have the Tabledit program, please click on the TablEdit banner to download a free .tef reader program. It includes the ability to play this song at a slower speed (great for learning). TablEdit is a program for creating, editing, printing and listening to tablature and sheet music (standard notation) for fretted, stringed instruments.


	Adobe® Reader® is a free software for viewing and printing Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) files.


	At this time we will be using the .MIDI music files produced by TablEdit..

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