Ding Dong! Merrily on High

About this arrangement

A dance tune from 16th-century France with English words written in 1924, a carol about church bells. The first four bars are played twice, once for each pair of lines, with a repeat sign on both staves. Then comes the famous “Glo-ria”: one syllable stretched over five bars of running quavers (eighth notes). Each bar is the same pattern as the bar before, one step lower, so the hand walks down the keyboard with it, all the way to the G below middle C. The left hand plays block chords that change with each step.

Practice tip: Practise the “Glo-ria” bars on their own, slowly. Once bar 5 is in your fingers, bars 6 to 9 are the same shape moved down one key at a time. Keep the quavers light and even, like bells.

The words

Ding dong! merrily on high, in heav'n the bells are ringing: Ding dong! verily the sky is riv'n with angel singing: Glo ria, Hosanna in excelsis!

A short history

The tune comes from Orchésographie, a book about dancing printed in France in 1589 by Jehan Tabourot, a priest who wrote under the name Thoinot Arbeau. There it is a dance called the “Branle de l’Official”; a branle is a dance done in a ring or a line.

The English words are by George Ratcliffe Woodward, a clergyman and collector of old carols who was also keen on church bell ringing, which is why this carol rings. He published it in 1924 in The Cambridge Carol-Book, with a harmony by Charles Wood. Woodward loved old-fashioned language and enjoyed inventing it: the second verse has bells “swungen” and songs “sungen”.

“Gloria, Hosanna in excelsis” means “Glory, Hosanna in the highest”, words from the church service. Woodward died in 1934, so his words are out of copyright in Australia.

Quick facts

Tune

Tune: Branle de l’Official, from Thoinot Arbeau, Orchésographie, 1589

Words

George Ratcliffe Woodward, 1924

Key

C major

Time signature

4/4

Length

12 bars (the first four played twice)

Tempo

Joyfully, crotchet = 112

Difficulty

Level 3: Notes below middle C (piece 69 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