This tune is my arrangement of "Ding Dong! Merrily on High", an English Christmas carol dating from 1924.
The lyrics were by English composer George Ratcliffe Woodward, who published the carol in 1924 in his book The Cambridge Carol-Book: Being Fifty-two Songs for Christmas, Easter, And Other Seasons, but the music is believed to be from a 16th century French secular dance tune, "Branle de l’Official". "Branle de l’Official" first appeared in Orchésographie, a dance book written by Jehan Tabourot (1519–1593), the French cleric, composer and writer.
My aims for this exercise included making it sound a bit more interesting than a couple of easy piano versions I had seen. I started with the basic melody and enhanced it by blending approaches to accompaniment I had seen in a couple of other arrangements of this carol, and by adding my own small embellishments to the beginning and end. For this version, I changed the playback of the music composition software to use string instruments. It came out nicer than I hoped, and just in time for use during the holiday season.
