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Piano sheet music for kids · Carol · Level 4: Up to the C above
The First Noel
Free beginner piano sheet music: C major, 3/4, 24 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
A Cornish carol in waltz time, with the verse and the “No-el” refrain written out in full. It starts on a pickup of two quavers, E and D, before the first bar, and then the tune is one long rising scale from middle C to the C above, which is why nearly every line has the same shape: step up, step up, then “c B A, G”. The hand covers the octave, so finger 5 stretches up for the high C in bars 3, 5 and 7. The left hand plays a waltz bass, a bass note and then two chords, in C, F and G7.
Practice tip: The dotted rhythm at the start of each line, “first No-el” (dotted crotchet, quaver, quaver, quaver), is the only tricky rhythm; clap it first. Lines 1, 3 and 5 begin the same way, so once the first line is learnt the rest comes quickly.
The words
The first Noel the angel did say was to certain poor shepherds in fields as they lay, in fields where they lay keeping their sheep, on a cold winter's night that was so deep. Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel, born is the King of Israel.
A short history
The First Noel is a folk carol from Cornwall in the far south-west of England, where carols were kept alive in the villages long after the Puritans had tried to stamp them out. The words were first printed in 1823 in Davies Gilbert’s Some Ancient Christmas Carols, and the tune followed in William Sandys’s Christmas Carols, Ancient and Modern in 1833, both collectors working from what Cornish people still sang.
“Noel” comes through French from the Latin natalis, meaning birthday, and old English spellings often give it as “Nowell”. The carol tells the Christmas story from the shepherds in the fields to the wise men following the star, over nine verses in Sandys, of which most people sing two or three.
The harmony everyone knows today was written by John Stainer for Christmas Carols New and Old in 1871.
Quick facts
- Tune
- Traditional (Cornish, 18th century or earlier; printed 1833)
- Key
- C major
- Time signature
- 3/4
- Length
- 24 bars and a pickup
- Tempo
- Flowing, crotchet = 104
- Difficulty
- Level 4: Up to the C above (piece 119 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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