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Piano sheet music for kids · Carol · Level 3: Notes below middle C
Away in a Manger
Free beginner piano sheet music: C major, 3/4, 16 bars and a pickup. Press Play to hear it on a real piano, slow it down, or hear one hand at a time; click any note to start from there; print it for the music stand.
About this arrangement
William Kirkpatrick’s 1895 tune, the one sung in Britain and Australia, arranged in C major so there are no black keys. It is a lullaby in waltz time and starts on a pickup, “A-”, before the first bar. The pairs of quavers at the end of bars 1, 2, 4 and 6 (“in a-a man-ger”) are sung on one syllable each, with the second note slurred on. After the pickup the hand sits in C position with the thumb on middle C, and the tune climbs to A in bar 3; it dips below middle C again for “his sweet head”. The left hand plays a waltz bass in C, A minor, D minor and G7.
Practice tip: Play the first “A-” with the thumb on the G below middle C, then move the thumb up to middle C for “way”. Sing it while you play: the slurred pairs of notes fall exactly where the words stretch, and bars 9 to 14 are the same as bars 1 to 6.
The words
Away in a manger, no crib for a bed, the little Lord Jesus laid down his sweet head. The stars in the bright sky looked down where he lay, the little Lord Jesus asleep on the hay.
A short history
The first two verses appeared anonymously in 1885 in a Lutheran Sunday-school book published in Philadelphia, Little Children’s Book for Schools and Families. For a century it was printed as “Luther’s Cradle Hymn” with a story that Martin Luther had sung it to his children, but the words are not Luther’s and are not known in German; they are American, and the third verse (“Be near me, Lord Jesus”) was added in 1892.
The tune has two lives. In the United States the carol is sung to “Mueller” by James R. Murray (1887). In Britain, Australia and most of the Commonwealth it is sung to “Cradle Song”, written by William J. Kirkpatrick, a Philadelphia hymn composer, and published in 1895 in a collection for a Christmas entertainment, Around the World with Christmas. That is the tune arranged here.
It is often the first carol a child learns to sing.
Quick facts
- Tune
- William J. Kirkpatrick, 1895
- Words
- Anonymous (American), 1885
- Key
- C major
- Time signature
- 3/4
- Length
- 16 bars and a pickup
- Tempo
- Gently, crotchet = 100
- Difficulty
- Level 3: Notes below middle C (piece 41 of 201)
- Type
- Carol
- Hands
- Both: melody in the right hand, chords in the left
- Copyright
- Public domain tune; arrangement by Digital Greenhouse, free for personal and classroom use
Questions and answers
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