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!

Only open to current Musicnotes.com customers, this offer will provide you with a free* phone and a $20 Musicnotes.com gift card and will appear on the receipt page after your purchase with us. This promotion is a better deal than you would get if you went through a retail store, so we hope you take advantage of this money-saving offer.

Be sure to read the Terms and Conditions on the Musicnotes.com Free* Phone and Gift Card offer for more information.

TWO DAYS ONLY!! 15% off your Entire Order!

To get 15% off of your entire purchase from Musicnotes.com, just enter in coupon code CYBER08 at the checkout. Expires midnight on December 2, 2008 so get in on this awesome deal! Valid once per customer.

New Christmas Sheet Music Just in Time for Saint Nick

As part of our ongoing effort to ensure that we have the broadest range of Christmas sheet music available for you to enjoy, we released quite a few new arrangements of classic Christmas carols and new Christmas songs. One of those Christmas songs is a Musicnotes Premiere; we were the first to offer and arrange sheet music for the song Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) performed by Death Cab for Cutie. New to Musicnotes.com? Don’t forget to download the Musicnotes Viewer to preview sheet music (audibly and visually) and download it right to your computer.

Here’s a small list of what new Christmas songs we’ve added to Musicnotes.com, with more on the way!

• The Little Drummer Boy by Celtic Woman
• Wonderful Christmastime by Paul McCartney
• (Everybody’s Waitin’ For) The Man with the Bag by Kay Starr
• What Child is This? by Barlow Girl
• Mister Santa by Nat King Cole and Amy Grant
• It Came Upon a Midnight Clear by Josh Groban
• I Wish it Could be Christmas Every Day by Wizzard
• Suzy Snowflake by Rosemary Clooney
• It’s Beginning to Look Like Christmas by Perry Como, Bing Crosby, Johnny Mathis
• Merry Xmas Everybody by Slade
• Silent Night by Taylor Swift
• Carol of the Bells / Sing We Now of Christmas by Barlow Girl
• The Christmas Song by Mannheim Steamroller
• O Come all Ye Faithful by Rush of Fools
• Joy to the Rhythm of the World by New Song
• Love Came Down at Christmas by Jars of Clay
• Christmas is the Time to Say I Love You by Billy Squier
• Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) by Death Cab for Cutie
• The Christmas Song by Mel Torme

Download Free Sheet Music for a Nutcracker Medley

December’s free sheet music download of the month is a medley of music from the Nutcracker Ballet.

Composed by Peter Tchaikovsky, download the Nutcracker Medley for free. Available for piano, guitar and through Guitar Guru, our Nutcracker Medley is perfect for the holiday season. This composition, arranged by our professional staff, is part of our Musicnotes Editions collection.

For more songs like our Christmas Musicnotes Editions, we invite you to visit our Christmas sheet music page. After you download this new addition to our holiday sheet music collection, we hope this sheet music inspires you to have dreams about sugar plum fairies and sparkling snow!

Important Contest News and Public Voting

We received five contest entries this month for our second edition of the YouPerform contest. We will be reviewing the entries submitted to the Musicnotes.com YouPerform Video Contest November 2008 this morning, so watch for public voting later today or tomorrow!

Well, that’s all the news we have today. Thank you so much for visiting our blog and remember, to change your tune all you have to do is sing a different key!