Christmas carol, sheet music with note names
Hark! The Herald Angels Sing: notes, key and chords
Hark! The Herald Angels Sing in G major, 4/4: all 76 notes with letter names, chords, range D4 to E5, words and a worksheet. 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
"Hark! The Herald Angels Sing" is 76 notes in 20 bars of 4/4, in G major, with a one-beat pick-up and a range of D4 to E5 (14 semitones). The tune is the Mendelssohn tune of 1840 that William Cummings fitted to Charles Wesley's words in 1855. Here are the melody with letter names, a playable version, the words, and the checks: four other editions have exactly the same sequence of notes.
Hark! The Herald Angels Sing at a glance
- Key
- G major (one sharp)
- Time signature
- 4/4, with a one-beat pick-up
- Range
- D4 to E5, 14 semitones
- Notes and bars
- 76 notes, 20 bars
- First note
- D4 (scale degree 5)
- Last note
- G4
- Words
- Charles Wesley, 1739; opening couplet changed by George Whitefield, 1753
- Tune
- Felix Mendelssohn, from the Festgesang of 1840; adapted to the words by William H. Cummings, 1855
- Hymn metre
- 7.7.7.7 D
- Why it is free to use
- Wesley died in 1788, Mendelssohn in 1847 and Cummings in 1915; the edition used here is a US government hymnal of 1920
- Level
- Medium: wider than a major sixth (14 semitones); wider than an octave; a leap of a minor sixth or more. How the level is worked out
- Tempo
- about quarter note = 108 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).
Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
G major · 4/4 · melody with note names
Key G major (one sharp: F♯) Range D4 to E5 Words Charles Wesley, 1739 (revised by George Whitefield and others) Music Felix Mendelssohn, 1840, adapted by William H. Cummings, 1855
Scale of G major G A B C D E F♯ I G: G B D IV C: C E G V D: D F♯ A
Melody: The Army and Navy Hymnal (1920), hymn 32, as transcribed on Wikisource (public domain (1920 US government publication); transcription CC BY-SA 4.0; Wikisource page revision 11525741 of 2021-07-23), checked note by note against 4 other editions. Free to print and share. musictheoryprint.com/charts/hark-the-herald-angels-sing-notes
Hark! The Herald Angels Sing: name the notes
G 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 sharp: F♯. The last note of a tune is usually the home note, 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: The Army and Navy Hymnal (1920), hymn 32, as transcribed on Wikisource (public domain (1920 US government publication); transcription CC BY-SA 4.0). Free to print and share. musictheoryprint.com/charts/hark-the-herald-angels-sing-notes
The notes of Hark! The Herald Angels Sing, bar by bar
76 notes in 20 bars, in G major. Letter names, the do-re-mi syllables (movable do: do is G) 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 | D G G F♯ | sol do do ti |
| 2 | G B B A | do mi mi re |
| 3 | D D D C | sol sol sol fa |
| 4 | B A B | mi re mi |
| 5 | D G G F♯ | sol do do ti |
| 6 | G B B A | do mi mi re |
| 7 | D A A F♯ | sol re re ti |
| 8 | F♯ E D | ti la sol |
| 9 | D D D G | sol sol sol do |
| 10 | C B B A | fa mi mi re |
| 11 | D D D G | sol sol sol do |
| 12 | C B B A | fa mi mi re |
| 13 | E E E D | la la la sol |
| 14 | C B C | fa mi fa |
| 15 | A B C D G | re mi fa sol do |
| 16 | G A B | do re mi |
| 17 | E E E D | la la la sol |
| 18 | C B C | fa mi fa |
| 19 | A B C D G | re mi fa sol do |
| 20 | G A G | do re do |
What the tune is made of
How the melody moves
Each of the 75 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: B4 (15 times). Longest run of one repeated note: 3. Different pitches: 9, made from 7 note names (some are used in two octaves). Biggest leap: 12 semitones.
The words of Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
Verse 1
Hark! The herald angels sing,
'Glory to the newborn King;
Peace on Earth, and mercy mild,
God and sinners reconciled!'
Joyful, all ye nations rise,
Join the triumph of the skies;
With th'angelic host proclaim
'Christ is born in Bethlehem!'
Hark! the herald angels sing,
'Glory to the new born king!'
Verse 2
Christ, by highest heaven adored,
Christ, the everlasting Lord!
Come, Desire of Nations, come,
Fix in us thy humble home.
Veiled in flesh the Godhead see;
Hail th'Incarnate Deity,
Pleased as man with men to dwell;
Jesus, Our Emmanuel!
Hark! the herald angels sing,
'Glory to the new born king!'
Verse 3
Hail, the heav'n born Prince of Peace!
Hail the sun of Righteousness!
Light and life to all he brings,
Risen with healing in his wings;
Mild he lays his glory by,
Born that no more may die,
Born to raise the sons of earth,
Born to give them second birth;
Hark! the herald angels sing,
'Glory to the new born king!'
Source: The Army and Navy Hymnal (1920), hymn 32, as transcribed on Wikisource; public domain (1920 US government publication); transcription CC BY-SA 4.0; Wikisource page revision 11525741 of 2021-07-23. Words as printed in the hymnal and typed in on Wikisource; the hyphens that split words into syllables are taken out. Verse numbers are not in the source.
How the notes were checked
Not one note on this page was typed in or remembered. The melody is read by a program from The Army and Navy Hymnal (1920), hymn 32, as transcribed on Wikisource (public domain (1920 US government publication); transcription CC BY-SA 4.0; Wikisource page revision 11525741 of 2021-07-23). 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 76 notes that are found there, whatever key the other edition is in.
| Edition | Licence | Notes there | Same pitches | Same pitches and lengths |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mutopia Project, "Mendelssohn (hymntune)" (Steve Dunlop)Mutopia-2008/01/13-1261; in another key, compared after moving it by -2 semitones | Public Domain | 76 | 100% | 97% |
| Wikipedia, "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing" (score 1 in the article)revision 1359078229 of 2026-06-12; in another key, compared after moving it by -2 semitones | CC BY-SA 4.0 | 76 | 100% | 97% |
| Wikimedia Commons, "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing .mid"uploaded 2021-01-16, SHA-1 08c52ed3f4; in another key, compared after moving it by -2 semitones | CC0 | 76 | 100% | 92% |
| Wikimedia Commons, "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.mid"uploaded 2023-08-02, SHA-1 2e2cc3ff19; in another key, compared after moving it by -2 semitones | Public domain | 76 | 100% | 96% |
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.
Hark! The Herald Angels Sing: questions people ask
What are the first notes of "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing"?
In G major the tune starts with a pick-up on D4 and then goes D G G F♯ G B B A D D D C. The first notes leap up a fourth, from the pick-up to the first beat, and the line then moves by steps, thirds and fourths.
Who wrote the tune of "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing"?
Felix Mendelssohn, in his Festgesang of 1840, a secular piece composed for the 400th anniversary of the invention of the printing press. Wikipedia says that in 1855 the English musician William Hayman Cummings adapted a movement from it to the words of "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing".
Who wrote the words, and why do they sound different from Wesley's?
Charles Wesley wrote "Hymn for Christmas-Day" in 1739, with ten four-line verses. Wikipedia says that George Whitefield changed the opening couplet from "Hark how all the welkin rings / Glory to the King of Kings" to "Hark! the herald angels sing / Glory to the newborn King", and that other editors later changed more lines, so the words in the hymnal below are not exactly Wesley's.
What key is it in, and is there a lower key?
The 1920 hymnal prints it in G major (one sharp), 4/4. G major is the number 3 key of 24 in the OpenScore Lieder Corpus (8.1% of 1,462 songs) and number 2 in the Mutopia Project (14.5% of 1,974 pieces). The Mutopia edition and Wikipedia's score are both in F major, a tone lower, which suits lower voices; the notes keep their shape.
How do I read the repeated notes in the tune?
There are 20 repeated notes (the same note twice in a row) among the 75 note-to-note moves in this tune, and the longest run of one note is 3 notes. A repeated note is played again, not held: tap each one.
Can I print this sheet music?
Yes: the tune (1840), the words (1739 and revisions) and the 1920 edition are out of copyright, and the sheet is made by this site. Some modern arrangements, such as the descant by David Willcocks that Wikipedia mentions (published 1961), are still protected and are not used here.
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Hark! The Herald Angels Sing in real music: the numbers
In G major the tune uses 7 of the 12 notes of the chromatic scale, all of them inside the key. It moves by step 34 times out of 75, 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 | 14 semitones (D4 to E5) | 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 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 E5) |
|---|---|---|
| Soprano | E♭4 to F5 | fits if moved up 1 semitone |
| 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 12 semitones |
| Bass | A2 to C4 | fits if moved down 16 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 "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing"
Overview
"Hark! The Herald Angels Sing" is an English Christmas carol authored by Charles Wesley in 1739. The carol, based on Luke 2:8–14, describes an angelic chorus singing of Christ's nativity.
Wesley's version, entitled "Hymn for Christmas-Day", consisted of ten four-line verses. The version most commonly sung today includes six of these, arranged into three eight-line verses, with a refrain. The modern text incorporates revisions made by a number of authors, among them George Whitefield, who altered the opening couplet from "Hark how all the welkin rings / Glory to the King of Kings" to the familiar "Hark! the herald angels sing / Glory to the newborn King".
Various settings have been used for the carol. Since the mid-19th century, it has usually been sung to a melody from Felix Mendelssohn's Festgesang zum Gutenbergfest (1840), originally composed for the 400th anniversary of the invention of the printing press.
Textual history
"Hymn for Christmas-Day" first appeared in Hymns and Sacred Poems (1739), compiled by Charles Wesley and his brother John. George Whitefield, who, like the Wesleys, was an early leader of the Methodist movement, subsequently included it in his Collection of Hymns for Social Worship (1753). Whitefield omitted the eighth and tenth verses and made various revisions to the remaining ones, chief of which was the alteration of the opening couplet. Whitefield's version was included in Martin Madan's Collection of Psalms and Hymns (1760) with another significant change, namely the alteration of the end of verse two to "With th' angelic host proclaim / Christ is born in Bethlehem".
Mendelssohn melody
In 1855, British musician William Hayman Cummings, organist at Waltham Abbey Church, adapted a movement from Felix Mendelssohn's secular Festgesang to fit the lyrics of "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing". Wesley had originally envisioned the words being sung to the same tune as his Easter hymn "Christ the Lord Is Risen Today".
In Britain, the carol is popularly performed in an arrangement that retains Cummings' original harmonisation of the Mendelssohn tune for the first two verses, but adds a soprano descant and a last verse harmonisation for the organ in verse three, by Sir David Willcocks. This arrangement was first published in 1961 by Oxford University Press in the first book of the Carols for Choirs series. For many years it has served as the recessional hymn of the annual Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols at King's College Chapel, Cambridge.
Source: Wikipedia, “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” — CC BY-SA 4.0 — text excerpted; see the article for the full text and authors. Revision of 2026-06-12.
Sources and licences for the text, scores and recordings on this page are on the credits page.
Sources: The Army and Navy Hymnal (1920), hymn 32, as transcribed on Wikisource, Mutopia Project, "Mendelssohn (hymntune)" (Steve Dunlop), Wikipedia, "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing" (score 1 in the article), Wikimedia Commons, "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing .mid", Wikimedia Commons, "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.mid".