Easy piano song, sheet music with note names
Amazing Grace piano notes: letters and easy sheet music
Amazing Grace piano notes: the tune with letter names and octaves, in G major, 3/4, D4 to D5. Play it and print it (A4 and Letter PDF).
Two kinds of page: the tune with a letter name under every note, and a worksheet with the names left blank.
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Quick answer
Amazing Grace on this page is the tune “New Britain” (one verse): 35 notes in 15 bars of 3/4, in G major, with a range of D4 to D5 (12 semitones). It begins on D4 and ends on G4. Below: the letter names with octave numbers and the left hand, the notes on the staff, a version you can play, a note-name worksheet and the checks that were run.
Amazing Grace at a glance
- Key
- G major (one sharp)
- Time signature
- 3/4: three beats to the bar, each a quarter note
- Range
- D4 to D5, 12 semitones
- Notes and bars
- 35 notes, 15 bars after a pick-up
- First note
- D4 (scale degree 5)
- Last note
- G4 (scale degree 1)
- Words
- John Newton, a hymn published in 1779 in Olney, Buckinghamshire
- Tune
- “New Britain”: Wikipedia says William Walker joined Newton’s words to it in 1835 in his tune book Southern Harmony; the tune joins two melodies first published in the Columbian Harmony in 1829
- The edition used
- the Mutopia file is headed “Anonymous; Virginia Harmony, 1831”
- Tempo on this page
- quarter note = 60; a hymn speed chosen for this page; the sources give different tempos
- Hands
- Right hand: the melody shown on the staff. Left hand: the bass notes of each bar, from the same edition, are in the table below.
- Level
- Easy: wider than a major sixth (12 semitones). How the level is worked out
Press a note on the staff to hear it. The sound is made in your browser from the notes of this page (a plain synthesiser, not a recording). Normal speed is quarter note = 60: a hymn speed chosen for this page; the sources give different tempos.
Amazing Grace
G major · 3/4 · melody with note names
Key G major (one sharp: F♯) Range D4 to D5 Words John Newton (published 1779) Music tune “New Britain” (anonymous; the Mutopia edition credits the Virginia Harmony, 1831)
Scale of G major G A B C D E F♯ Middle C is C4, the C nearest the middle of the keyboard
Melody: Mutopia Project, "New Britain (hymntune)", soprano (the tune) (Steve Dunlop) (Public Domain; Mutopia-2008/02/19-1283), checked note by note against 4 other sources. Free to print and share. musictheoryprint.com/charts/amazing-grace-piano-notes
Amazing Grace: name the notes
G major · 3/4 · worksheet
Name Date Class
Write the letter name of every note on the line under it. The key signature tells you which notes are sharp: F♯. The home note of the key is G.
Check your answers against the sheet with the note names. Extra: circle every note that is a G, the home note of the key.
Melody: Mutopia Project, "New Britain (hymntune)", soprano (the tune) (Steve Dunlop) (Public Domain). Free to print and share. musictheoryprint.com/charts/amazing-grace-piano-notes
The notes of Amazing Grace, bar by bar
35 notes in 15 bars, after a pick-up, in G major. Each note is a letter and an octave number: C4 is middle C, the C nearest the middle of the keyboard, and the numbers go up by one at every C. The ♯ and ♭ mean the black key above or below the letter. “held” means a tied note that is not played again; “rest” is silence. The left-hand column gives the bass notes of each bar, read from the same edition; “held” there means a bass note that is still sounding from the bar before.
| Bar | Right hand (melody) | Left hand (bass) | do re mi |
|---|---|---|---|
| pick-up | D4 | G2 | sol |
| 1 | G4 B4 G4 | G2 G2 B2 | do mi do |
| 2 | B4 A4 | D3 D3 | mi re |
| 3 | G4 E4 | E3 C3 | do la |
| 4 | D4 D4 | G2 G2 | sol sol |
| 5 | G4 B4 G4 | G2 G2 B2 | do mi do |
| 6 | B4 A4 | D3 C3 | mi re |
| 7 | D5 | B2 | sol |
| 8 | B4 D5 B4 | G2 G3 | mi sol mi |
| 9 | D5 B4 G4 | G3 B2 | sol mi do |
| 10 | D4 E4 G4 | B2 C3 B2 | sol la do |
| 11 | G4 E4 D4 | C3 G2 | do la sol |
| 12 | D4 G4 | B2 E3 | sol do |
| 13 | B4 G4 B4 | D3 D3 | mi do mi |
| 14 | A4 G4 | D3 G2 | re do |
| 15 | G4 | G2 | do |
do re mi uses movable do: do is G.
Which keys to press
The tune spans 8 letter names, from D4 to D5. A hand in one five-finger position covers five, so the hand has to shift position (or stretch) at least once; an octave is eight letter names. Try the notes on the virtual piano or press a note on the staff above to hear it.
What the tune is made of
How the melody moves
Each of the 34 moves from one note to the next, counted.
Which note lengths it uses
Every note counted by its length, as a fraction of a whole note.
Most-used note: G4 (11 times). Longest run of one repeated note: 2. Different pitches: 6, made from 5 note names (some are used in two octaves). Biggest leap: 5 semitones.
How the notes were checked
Not one note on this page was typed in or remembered. The melody is read by a program from Mutopia Project, "New Britain (hymntune)", soprano (the tune) (Steve Dunlop) (Public Domain; Mutopia-2008/02/19-1283). A second program then looked for the same notes, in the same order, in each of the sources below, which were typeset or encoded by other people. The number is the share of this page’s notes that are found there, whatever key the other source is in.
| Source | Licence | Notes there | Same pitches | Same pitches and lengths |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wikipedia, "Amazing Grace" (score 1 in the article)revision 1360697760 of 2026-06-23 | CC BY-SA 4.0 | 35 | 100% | 94% |
| Wikimedia Commons, "AmazingGrace.MID"uploaded 2006-01-14, SHA-1 3c3a1cc845 | Public domain | 35 | 100% | 54% |
| Wikimedia Commons, "New Britain Southern Harmony Amazing Grace.mid"uploaded 2013-12-12, SHA-1 3598c50e06; in another key, compared after moving it by 5 semitones | Public domain | 72 | 94% | 71% |
| Where it differs in pitch: bar 9 beat 1: this page has D, the other source has no matching note; bar 10 beat 2: this page has E, the other source has no matching note. | ||||
| Wikimedia Commons, "Amazing grace.mid"uploaded 2021-02-01, SHA-1 b29b1141e8; in another key, compared after moving it by -2 semitones | CC BY-SA 3.0 | 76 | 89% | 57% |
| Where it differs in pitch: bar 8 beat 1: this page has B, the other source has no matching note; bar 10 beat 1: this page has D, the other source has no matching note; bar 10 beat 2: this page has E, the other source has no matching note; bar 10 beat 3.5: this page has G, the other source has no matching note. | ||||
The second column is lower than the first because editions write the same long notes in different ways (a half note and a tied pair, a held last note) and because performance MIDI files shorten or lengthen notes. Pitch is the part that matters for the letter names. A MIDI file of a whole piano piece does not say which notes are the melody, so the program takes the highest note at each moment; a melody note that sits under a higher accompaniment note can be missed, and that is the usual reason for a “no matching note” above.
Amazing Grace: questions people ask
What are the letter notes of Amazing Grace?
The first notes, with their octave numbers, are D4 G4 B4 G4 B4 A4 G4 E4 D4 D4 G4 B4. Every note of the tune is in the table above, one bar per row (middle C is C4, the C nearest the middle of the keyboard; the next C up is C5).
What key and time signature is Amazing Grace in?
On this page it is in G major (one sharp), in 3/4: three beats to the bar, each a quarter note. G major, one sharp (F♯), is the key of the Mutopia edition and of the score printed in Wikipedia; the three MIDI files used in the check are in G major, F major and C major, with the same tune.
Which hand plays what, and how high and low does it go?
The range is D4 to D5, 12 semitones; 3.4% of the first vocal lines in the OpenScore Lieder Corpus have a smaller range and 89.9% a larger one. The tune spans 8 letter names, from D4 to D5. A hand in one five-finger position covers five, so the hand has to shift position (or stretch) at least once; an octave is eight letter names.
Is this the whole of Amazing Grace?
Yes, for one verse: the 15 bars and the pick-up are the whole tune, which is sung again for each verse. The words are not printed on this page.
Is Amazing Grace free to print and share?
John Newton’s words were published in 1779 and the tune “New Britain” appeared in American tune books of the 1820s and 1830s, so both are free to use. The edition used here is the Mutopia Project typesetting of the hymn tune (from the Cyber Hymnal), marked Public Domain. The sheets are made by this site and may be printed and shared.
How do I know the notes are right?
The melody is read by a program from Mutopia Project, "New Britain (hymntune)", soprano (the tune) (Steve Dunlop), never typed in. A second program then compares it, note by note and in order, with 4 other sources: Wikipedia's score (100% of its notes); MIDI file “AmazingGrace” (100% of its notes); MIDI file “New Britain Southern Harmony Amazing Grace” (94% of its notes); MIDI file “Amazing grace” (89% of its notes). 2 of the 4 agree with this page on every pitch. Where they differ, the page lists every note and bar, so you can see the difference.
Who wrote Amazing Grace?
The words are by the English clergyman John Newton, and the hymn was published in 1779 in Olney, Buckinghamshire. The tune “New Britain” has no known composer: Wikipedia says it joins two melodies, “Gallaher” and “St. Mary”, first published in the Columbian Harmony in 1829.
Was Amazing Grace always sung to this tune?
No. Wikipedia says it is not known what music, if any, went with the words in Olney; the first known pairing was with the tune “Hephzibah” in 1808, and more than twenty settings circulated until 1835, when the American composer William Walker set Newton’s words to “New Britain” in Southern Harmony.
musictheoryprint.com · free to print and share
Amazing Grace in real music: the numbers
In G major the tune uses 5 of the 12 notes of the chromatic scale, all of them inside the key. It moves by step 8 times out of 34, and ends on the home note, as 75% of major-key art songs do.
This tune against real art songs
| What | This tune | OpenScore Lieder (880 major-key songs) |
|---|---|---|
| First note | D4 (degree 5) | 41.7% start on degree 5 |
| Last note | G4 (degree 1) | 75.1% end on degree 1 |
| Range of the tune | 12 semitones (D4 to D5) | 3% of 1,458 first vocal lines span fewer semitones, 90% more |
The art-song numbers are for the first vocal line of every major-key song whose key signature does not change; the numbers for this tune are counted on the melody printed above.
How common G major is
| Collection | Items with a key | Share in G major | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| OpenScore Lieder | 1,462 | 8.1% | 3 of 24 |
| Mutopia | 1,974 | 14.5% | 2 of 24 |
| MusicBrainz works | 13,669 | 9.8% | 3 of 24 |
| MusicBrainz works | 5,340 | 8.9% | 2 of 24 |
| Open Opus work titles | 3,587 | 8.7% | 3 of 24 |
| AcousticBrainz recordings | 63,124 | 6.7% | 4 of 24 |
Counts of key signatures (and estimated major or minor) in the collections the site has measured; see the key page for G major.
Where the tune sits among singers' ranges
| Voice type (as labelled in the scores) | Typical range of a real song line | This tune (D4 to D5) |
|---|---|---|
| Soprano | E♭4 to F5 | fits if moved up 1 semitone |
| Alto / Contralto | C4 to C5 | fits if moved down 2 semitones |
| Tenor | F3 to F♯4 | fits if moved down 8 semitones |
| Baritone | C3 to E4 | fits if moved down 10 semitones |
| Bass | A2 to C4 | fits if moved down 14 semitones |
Typical range = the median across song lines of the lowest and highest notes (ignoring one stray note each side), from 285 vocal lines in the OpenScore Lieder Corpus. "Fits" means both ends of the tune are inside it.
Method
- This tune's own numbers are counted by a script on the decoded melody (tied notes counted once, rests ignored).
- Art-song numbers are read from the files behind the site's statistics pages (OpenScore Lieder Corpus: key and scale-degree counts for the first vocal line of every piece, vocal ranges of 1,458 lines).
- Key counts for Mutopia and MusicBrainz come from the same published statistics; a key is counted from its key signature.
Data: computed from the OpenScore Lieder Corpus (CC0), 1,462 scores. Snapshot: commit 6b2dc542ce (2026-04-07).
Background
Excerpts from open reference works, reproduced as published (references, images and tables removed). Every excerpt names its source, licence and original article.
About “Amazing Grace”
Overview
"Amazing Grace" is a Christian hymn published in 1779 by the English clergyman John Newton in Olney, Buckinghamshire. With a message that forgiveness and redemption are possible regardless of the sins people commit and that the soul can be delivered from despair through the mercy of God, it is among the most sung and recorded hymns in the world and is especially popular in the United States, where it is used for both religious and secular purposes.
"New Britain" tune
When originally used in Olney, it is unknown what music, if any, accompanied the verses written by John Newton. Contemporary hymnbooks did not contain music and were simply small books of religious poetry. The first known instance of Newton's lines joined to music was in A Companion to the Countess of Huntingdon's Hymns (London, 1808), where it is set to the tune "Hephzibah" by English composer John Jenkins Husband. Common meter hymns were interchangeable with a variety of tunes; more than twenty musical settings of "Amazing Grace" circulated with varying popularity until 1835, when American composer William Walker assigned Newton's words to a traditional song named "New Britain" in his shape note tunebook Southern Harmony. This song was an amalgamation of two melodies ("Gallaher" and "St. Mary"), first published in the Columbian Harmony by Charles H. Spilman and Benjamin Shaw (Cincinnati, 1829). Spilman and Shaw, both students at Kentucky's Centre College, compiled their tunebook both for public worship and revivals, to satisfy "the wants of the Church in her triumphal march". Most of the tunes had been previously published, but "Gallaher" and "St. Mary" had not. As neither tune is attributed and both show elements of oral transmission, scholars can only speculate that they are possibly of British origin. A manuscript from 1828 by Lucius Chapin, a famous hymn writer of that time, contains a tune very close to "St. Mary", but that does not mean that he wrote it.
Source: Wikipedia, “Amazing Grace” — CC BY-SA 4.0 — text excerpted; see the article for the full text and authors. Revision of 2026-06-23.
Sources and licences for the text, scores and recordings on this page are on the credits page.
Sources: Mutopia Project, "New Britain (hymntune)", soprano (the tune) (Steve Dunlop), Wikipedia, "Amazing Grace" (score 1 in the article), Wikimedia Commons, "AmazingGrace.MID", Wikimedia Commons, "New Britain Southern Harmony Amazing Grace.mid", Wikimedia Commons, "Amazing grace.mid".