Christmas carol, sheet music with note names
Angels We Have Heard on High notes: letter names, key and melody
Angels We Have Heard on High in F major, 4/4: all 39 notes with letter names, the home chord, the 16-note Gloria, words and a worksheet. Free printable 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
"Angels We Have Heard on High" is 39 notes in 11 bars of 4/4, in F major, with a range of C4 to D5 (14 semitones). It begins with three notes on the same pitch, A. The long "Gloria" is sung on one syllable over 16 notes. Below: the melody with a letter name under every note, a version you can play, the English words and the checks that were run.
Angels We Have Heard on High at a glance
- Key
- F major (one flat)
- Time signature
- 4/4
- Range
- C4 to D5, 14 semitones
- Notes and bars
- 39 notes, 11 bars
- First note
- A4 (scale degree 3)
- Last note
- F4 (scale degree 1)
- Tune
- Traditional French carol, hymn tune "Gloria" (Wikipedia); the earliest known publication with text and notes is of 1842
- English words
- James Chadwick; the article gives 1862
- Notes sung on "Glo-"
- 16
- Why it is free to use
- The French carol was in print in 1842 and the English words are from 1862; only the tune line is used, not the harmony of the arrangement in the score
- Level
- Medium: wider than a major sixth (14 semitones); wider than an octave. How the level is worked out
- Tempo
- about quarter note = 120 when played at normal speed
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).
Angels We Have Heard on High
F major · 4/4 · melody with note names
Key F major (one flat: B♭) Range C4 to D5 Words Unknown French original; English paraphrase by James Chadwick (the article gives 1862) Music Traditional French carol tune "Gloria"; the earliest known publication with text and notes is of 1842, attributed to "W. M."
Scale of F major F G A B♭ C D E I F: F A C IV B♭: B♭ D F V C: C E G
Melody: Wikipedia, "Angels We Have Heard on High" (score 1 in the article) (CC BY-SA 4.0; revision 1349014774 of 2026-04-15), checked note by note against 2 other editions. Free to print and share. musictheoryprint.com/charts/angels-we-have-heard-on-high-notes
Angels We Have Heard on High: name the notes
F major · 4/4 · worksheet
Name Date Class
Write the letter name of every note on the line under it. The key signature tells you which notes are flat: B♭. The last note of a tune is usually the home note, F.
Check your answers against the sheet with the note names. Extra: circle every note that is a F, the home note of the key.
Melody: Wikipedia, "Angels We Have Heard on High" (score 1 in the article) (CC BY-SA 4.0). Free to print and share. musictheoryprint.com/charts/angels-we-have-heard-on-high-notes
The notes of Angels We Have Heard on High, bar by bar
39 notes in 11 bars, in F major. Letter names, the do-re-mi syllables (movable do: do is F) and the chord symbols of the setting, where there are any. “held” means a tied note that is not played again.
| Bar | Notes | do re mi |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | A A A C | mi mi mi sol |
| 2 | C B♭ A | sol fa mi |
| 3 | A G A C | mi re mi sol |
| 4 | A G F | mi re do |
| 5 | C D C B♭ A | sol la sol fa mi |
| 6 | B♭ C B♭ A G | fa sol fa mi re |
| 7 | A B♭ A G F | mi fa mi re do |
| 8 | G C C | re sol sol |
| 9 | F G A B♭ | do re mi fa |
| 10 | A G | mi re |
| 11 | F | do |
What the tune is made of
How the melody moves
Each of the 38 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: A4 (13 times). Longest run of one repeated note: 3. Different pitches: 7, made from 6 note names (some are used in two octaves). Biggest leap: 7 semitones.
The words of Angels We Have Heard on High
English words (James Chadwick)
Verse 1
Angels we have heard on high
Sweetly singing o'er the plains
And the mountains in reply
Echoing their joyous strains
Refrain (sung after every verse)
Gloria in excelsis Deo!
Verse 2
Shepherds, why this jubilee?
Why your joyous strains prolong?
What the gladsome tidings be?
Which inspire your heavenly songs?
Verse 3
Come to Bethlehem and see
Him whose birth the angels sing;
Come, adore on bended knee,
Christ the Lord, the newborn King.
Verse 4
See Him in a manger laid
Whom the choirs of angels praise;
Mary, Joseph, lend your aid,
While our heart in love we raise.
Source: Wikipedia, "Angels We Have Heard on High", section English; English words from 1862, public domain; page text CC BY-SA 4.0; revision 1349014774 of 2026-04-15. As Wikipedia prints the English text, whose infobox names James Chadwick (1862) as the author of the English paraphrase. Books print three or four verses, and the wording changes a little from book to book.
How the notes were checked
Not one note on this page was typed in or remembered. The melody is read by a program from Wikipedia, "Angels We Have Heard on High" (score 1 in the article) (CC BY-SA 4.0; revision 1349014774 of 2026-04-15). A second program then looked for the same notes, in the same order, in each of the editions below, which were typeset and encoded by other people. The number is the share of this page’s 39 notes that are found there, whatever key the other edition is in.
| Edition | Licence | Notes there | Same pitches | Same pitches and lengths |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wikimedia Commons, "Les anges dans nos campagnes.mid"uploaded 2020-11-15, SHA-1 50eb84ed03 | CC BY 3.0 | 255 | 100% | 87% |
| Wikipedia, "Angels We Have Heard on High": the MIDI file made from the article's scorerevision 1349014774, file SHA-1 4b5b7dfeea | CC BY-SA 4.0 | 77 | 100% | 100% |
The rhythm column is lower than the pitch column 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.
Angels We Have Heard on High: questions people ask
What are the notes of "Angels We Have Heard on High"?
In F major the first line, "Angels we have heard on high", is A A A C C B♭ A A. The whole tune uses 6 note names (A C B♭ G F D). Every note is on the printable sheet above.
How many notes are in the "Gloria" of "Angels We Have Heard on High"?
Wikipedia says the "o" of "Gloria" is sustained through 16 notes of a rising and falling sequence. In the score used here the slur over "Glo-" covers 16 notes, so the two agree.
What key and time signature is it in?
The score used here is in F major (one flat) and in 4/4. A MIDI file of the French carol on Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0), used as a check, has the same notes. F major is the number 1 key of 24 in the OpenScore Lieder Corpus (8.9% of 1,462 songs) and number 4 in the Mutopia Project (9.5% of 1,974 pieces).
What chords go with "Angels We Have Heard on High"? What are the guitar chords?
This page prints no chord symbols. The only open four-part score is an arrangement (Wikipedia names Edward Shippen Barnes as the arranger), and its harmony belongs to that arrangement, so no chords are taken from it. What the notes say: the home chord is F major (F A C), and 25 of the 39 notes of the tune are one of those three notes. The tune starts on A4 and ends on F4. Chord symbols belong to a particular arrangement, so take them from a published one.
Is it a French carol?
Wikipedia says it is a traditional French carol, "Les Anges dans nos campagnes", with paraphrased English words by James Chadwick. The first known publication, in 1805, had other French words ("J'Entends, là sur ces collines") and a tune that has not been identified. The first known publication with the text and the notes of "Les Anges dans nos campagnes" is of 1842, with the music attributed to "W. M.".
Is the tune the same in Britain?
Not always. Wikipedia says "Les Anges dans nos campagnes" is sung to a similar tune known as "Iris", named after the newspaper of James Montgomery, who wrote "Angels from the Realms of Glory", the version of this carol normally sung in the United Kingdom. This page has the tune "Gloria" that goes with "Angels We Have Heard on High".
Can I print this sheet music?
Yes. The French carol was in print in 1842 and the English words are from 1862, so they are out of copyright. The sheet is made by this site from the tune line alone; modern arrangements are separate works and are not used.
musictheoryprint.com · free to print and share
Angels We Have Heard on High in real music: the numbers
In F major the tune uses 6 of the 12 notes of the chromatic scale, all of them inside the key. It moves by step 27 times out of 38, 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 | A4 (degree 3) | 32.5% start on degree 3 |
| Last note | F4 (degree 1) | 75.1% end on degree 1 |
| Range of the tune | 14 semitones (C4 to D5) | 16% of 1,458 first vocal lines span fewer semitones, 73% more |
The art-song numbers are for the first vocal line of every major-key song whose key signature does not change; the carol numbers are counted on the melody printed above.
How common F major is
| Collection | Items with a key | Share in F major | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| OpenScore Lieder | 1,462 | 8.9% | 1 of 24 |
| Mutopia | 1,974 | 9.5% | 4 of 24 |
| MusicBrainz works | 13,669 | 7.9% | 4 of 24 |
| MusicBrainz works | 5,340 | 7.4% | 5 of 24 |
| Open Opus work titles | 3,587 | 8.4% | 4 of 24 |
| AcousticBrainz recordings | 63,124 | 7.8% | 3 of 24 |
Counts of key signatures (and estimated major or minor) in the collections the site has measured; see the key page for F major.
Where the tune sits among singers' ranges
| Voice type (as labelled in the scores) | Typical range of a real song line | This tune (C4 to D5) |
|---|---|---|
| Soprano | E♭4 to F5 | fits if moved up 3 semitones |
| Alto / Contralto | C4 to C5 | wider than this range by 2 semitones |
| Tenor | F3 to F♯4 | wider than this range by 1 semitone |
| 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
- The carol'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.
History of "Angels We Have Heard on High"
Overview
"Angels We Have Heard on High" is a Christmas carol to the hymn tune "Gloria" from a traditional French song called "Les Anges dans nos campagnes", with paraphrased English lyrics by James Chadwick. The song's subject is the birth of Jesus Christ as narrated in the Gospel of Luke, specifically the scene outside Bethlehem in which shepherds encounter a multitude of angels singing and praising the newborn child.
Tune
"Angels We Have Heard on High" is generally sung to the hymn tune "Gloria", a traditional French carol as arranged by Edward Shippen Barnes. Its most memorable feature is its chorus, "Gloria in excelsis Deo", where the "o" of "Gloria" is fluidly sustained through 16 notes of a rising and falling melismatic melodic sequence.
"Les Anges dans nos campagnes" is sung to a similar tune known as "Iris". This tune takes its name from the newspaper associated with James Montgomery, who wrote "Angels from the Realms of Glory", the version of this carol normally sung in the United Kingdom. "Iris" is also generally used with "Shepherds in the Fields Abiding", the version normally sung in Canada.
Lyrics
Like the 1816 "Angels from the Realms of Glory", the lyrics of "Angels We Have Heard on High" are inspired by, but not an exact translation of, the traditional French carol now known as "Les Anges dans nos campagnes" ("the angels in our countryside"). Its first known publication was in 1805 in a book of French carols by Révérend Père Roche, as "J'Entends, là sur ces collines". No author of the carol was given, and it is unclear whether Rev. Roche wrote the carol or merely collected it. The melody, listed as "Cherche-moi, etc.", has not yet been identified. Twelve stanzas were provided, with the first stanza significantly different from what was later more widely adopted. Dozens of textual variants appeared in the 19th century.
The earliest known publication of the carol as "Les Anges dans nos campagnes", with text and notes, was in 1842. The music was attributed to "W. M.". According to some websites, the music is by the nineteenth-century Wilfrid Moreau from Poitiers. This should probably read Wulfran Moreau (1827–1905), who, though only about fifteen years old in 1842, was from Poitiers and later was professor of rhetoric at Montmorillon and a published composer of religious and school music.
Source: Wikipedia, “Angels We Have Heard on High” — CC BY-SA 4.0 — text excerpted; see the article for the full text and authors. Revision of 2026-04-15.
Sources and licences for the text, scores and recordings on this page are on the credits page.
Sources: Wikipedia, "Angels We Have Heard on High" (score 1 in the article), Wikimedia Commons, "Les anges dans nos campagnes.mid".