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Christmas piano sheet music · Absolute beginner
Angels We Have Heard on High (Verse)
Free Christmas piano music for absolute beginners: 16 bars, right hand only. Put your thumb on middle C and one finger on each key; the number above each note is the finger, the letter under it is the key. Press Play to hear how it goes, press Slower to follow along, and print it for the music stand.
Where your hand goes
Find middle C: the white key just to the left of the two black keys nearest the middle of the piano. Put your right thumb on it and rest one finger on each white key going up, so your fingers 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 sit on C, D, E, F and G.
This piece uses 5 notes: C, D, E, F, G. In the music, the number above each note tells you the finger and the letter under it tells you the key. Your hand never has to move.
About this arrangement
The verse of the carol, the part before the long “Gloria”. Put your right thumb on middle C and rest one finger on each white key up to G. Every note has its finger number above it. Count a steady four in every bar. Most notes are minims (hollow notes, two counts). “Heard” and “o’er” are dotted minims, held for three counts, followed by a one-count note. The last note of each line is a semibreve, four counts. The second half is the first half again with new words.
Practice tip: The two lines start the same way but end differently: the first ends on E, the second walks home to middle C. Find both endings before you start: “heard on high” is G, F, E and “o’er the plains” is E, D, C.
The words
Angels we have heard on high, sweetly singing o’er the plains, and the mountains in reply echoing their joyous strains.
A short history
The tune is an old French carol, “Les anges dans nos campagnes” (“The angels in our countryside”). Its words tell of the shepherds near Bethlehem hearing the angels sing on the night Jesus was born, as the Gospel of Luke describes.
The English words are a free translation by James Chadwick, a Catholic bishop in the north of England, published about 1860.
The chorus, “Gloria in excelsis Deo” (“Glory to God in the highest”), is famous for stretching the “o” of “Gloria” over sixteen notes. That chorus climbs and falls too far for one hand position, so this first arrangement plays the verse only. It is a good one to come back to when you can move your hand.
Quick facts
- Tune
- Traditional French carol (Les anges dans nos campagnes)
- Words
- James Chadwick, about 1860
- Level
- Absolute beginner (five keys, every note labelled)
- Key
- C position (right thumb on middle C)
- Time signature
- 4/4
- Length
- 16 bars
- Tempo
- Joyfully, minim = 72
- Hands
- Right hand only: thumb on middle C, one finger for each key; the finger number is above every note and the letter name under it
- Copyright
- Public domain tune and words; arrangement by Digital Greenhouse, free for personal, church and classroom use
Questions and answers
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