Christmas carol, sheet music with note names
It Came Upon the Midnight Clear: notes, key and chords
It Came Upon the Midnight Clear in B♭ major, 6/8: all 66 notes with letter names, chords, range D4 to D5, 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
"It Came Upon the Midnight Clear" is 66 notes in 16 bars of 6/8, in B♭ major, with a one-eighth-note pick-up and a range of D4 to D5 (12 semitones). This is the American pairing, the tune CAROL by Richard Storrs Willis (1850) with the words of Edmund Sears (1849). The page has the melody with letter names, a version to play, the chords of the 1920 hymnal setting, the five-verse text of the hymnal, and the checks.
It Came Upon the Midnight Clear at a glance
- Key
- B♭ major (two flats)
- Time signature
- 6/8, with a one-eighth-note pick-up
- Range
- D4 to D5, 12 semitones
- Notes and bars
- 66 notes, 16 bars
- First note
- F4 (scale degree 5)
- Last note
- B♭4
- Words
- Edmund H. Sears, 1849 (five stanzas, common metre doubled)
- Tune
- CAROL, Richard Storrs Willis, 1850
- Hymn metre
- C.M.D.
- Why it is free to use
- Sears died in 1876 and Willis in 1900; the edition used here is a US government hymnal of 1920
- Level
- Medium: wider than a major sixth (12 semitones); 2 notes outside the key signature; a leap of a minor sixth or more. How the level is worked out
- Tempo
- about dotted quarter note = 48 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).
It Came Upon the Midnight Clear
B♭ major · 6/8 · melody with note names
Key B♭ major (two flats: B♭, E♭) Range D4 to D5 Words Edmund H. Sears, 1849 Music tune CAROL, Richard Storrs Willis, 1850
Scale of B♭ major B♭ C D E♭ F G A I B♭: B♭ D F IV E♭: E♭ G B♭ V F: F A C
Melody: The Army and Navy Hymnal (1920), hymn 33, as transcribed on Wikisource (public domain (1920 US government publication); transcription CC BY-SA 4.0; Wikisource page revision 11525742 of 2021-07-23), checked note by note against 2 other editions. Chord symbols are worked out from the four voices of that edition. Free to print and share. musictheoryprint.com/charts/it-came-upon-the-midnight-clear-notes
It Came Upon the Midnight Clear: name the notes
B♭ major · 6/8 · 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♭, E♭. The last note of a tune is usually the home note, B♭.
Check your answers against the sheet with the note names. Extra: circle every note that is a B♭, the home note of the key.
Melody: The Army and Navy Hymnal (1920), hymn 33, as transcribed on Wikisource (public domain (1920 US government publication); transcription CC BY-SA 4.0). Free to print and share. musictheoryprint.com/charts/it-came-upon-the-midnight-clear-notes
The notes of It Came Upon the Midnight Clear, bar by bar
66 notes in 16 bars, after a pick-up, in B♭ major. Letter names, the do-re-mi syllables (movable do: do is B♭) 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 | Chords | Chord function |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| pick-up | F | sol | B♭ | I |
| 1 | D A C B♭ G | mi ti re do la | E♭ | IV |
| 2 | F G F F | sol la sol sol | B♭ | I |
| 3 | G A B♭ B♭ C D | la ti do do re mi | E♭ Edim | IV ♯°m |
| 4 | C (held) F | re (held) sol | F | V |
| 5 | D A C B♭ G | mi ti re do la | B♭ E♭ | I IV |
| 6 | F G F F | sol la sol sol | B♭ | I |
| 7 | G G A G F | la la ti la sol | E♭ F7 | IV V7 |
| 8 | B♭ (held) D | do (held) mi | B♭ | I |
| 9 | D D D E F♯ | mi mi mi fi si | ||
| 10 | G A B♭ D | la ti do mi | Gm | vi |
| 11 | C B♭ A G A G | re do ti la ti la | F C7 | V V7/V |
| 12 | F (held) F | sol (held) sol | F | V |
| 13 | D A C B♭ G | mi ti re do la | B♭ E♭ | I IV |
| 14 | F G F F | sol la sol sol | B♭ | I |
| 15 | G G A G F | la la ti la sol | E♭ F7 | IV V7 |
| 16 | B♭ (held) | do (held) | B♭ | I |
Chord symbols: worked out by a program from the four voices of the hymnal setting (the chord that best fits all the notes sounding at the start of each beat; passing notes can hide a chord change). Checked against the four voices of Mutopia Project, "Carol (hymntune)" (Steve Dunlop): the two agree on the root and the major or minor quality of the chord at 30 of 31 beats in common.
What the tune is made of
How the melody moves
Each of the 65 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 (16 times). Longest run of one repeated note: 2. Different pitches: 9, made from 8 note names (some are used in two octaves). Biggest leap: 12 semitones.
The words of It Came Upon the Midnight Clear
Verse 1
It came up -on the midnight clear,
That glorious song of old,
From an - gels bend - ing near the earth,
To touch their harps of gold:
Peace on the earth,goodwill to men,
From heaven's allgracious King ;
The world in solemn stillness lay
To hear the angels sing.
Verse 2
Still through the cloven skies they come,
With peaceful wings unfurled;
And still their heavenly music floats
O'er all the weary world :
Above its sad and lowly plains
They bend on heavenly wing,
And ever o'er its Babel sounds
The blessed angels sing.
Verse 3
And ye, beneath life's crushing load,
Whose forms are bending low,
Who toil along the climbing way,
With painful steps and slow,
Look now, for glad and golden nours
Come swiftly on the wing ;
O rest beside the weary road,
And hear the angels sing !
Verse 4
For lo! the days are hastening on,
By prophetbards foretold,
When with the evercircling years
Comes round the age of gold ;
When peace shall over all the earth
Its ancient splendors fling,
And the whole world give back the song
Which now the angels sing.
Source: The Army and Navy Hymnal (1920), hymn 33, as transcribed on Wikisource; public domain (1920 US government publication); transcription CC BY-SA 4.0; Wikisource page revision 11525742 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 33, as transcribed on Wikisource (public domain (1920 US government publication); transcription CC BY-SA 4.0; Wikisource page revision 11525742 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 66 notes that are found there, whatever key the other edition is in.
| Edition | Licence | Notes there | Same pitches | Same pitches and lengths |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mutopia Project, "Carol (hymntune)" (Steve Dunlop)Mutopia-2008/01/13-1231 | Public Domain | 71 | 100% | 92% |
| Wikipedia, "It Came Upon the Midnight Clear" (score 1 in the article)revision 1351514635 of 2026-04-28 | CC BY-SA 4.0 | 66 | 100% | 100% |
Corrected after the check: the note at index 2 was C5 in the main edition; two other editions agree on A4, which is what this page shows.
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.
It Came Upon the Midnight Clear: questions people ask
What key and time signature is "It Came Upon the Midnight Clear" in?
The 1920 hymnal prints the tune CAROL in B♭ major (two flats), in 6/8 with a pick-up. B♭ major is the number 10 key of 24 in the OpenScore Lieder Corpus (4.8% of 1,462 songs) and number 8 in the Mutopia Project (4.8% of 1,974 pieces). Wikipedia's other score of the same words, for the tune NOEL, is written in F major in 4/4.
What are the first notes?
The tune starts with a pick-up on F4 and leaps up a major sixth to D5. The notes of the first lines are F D A C B♭ G F G F F G A B♭ B♭.
Which tune goes with these words, CAROL or NOEL?
Wikipedia says that in the United States the words are sung to CAROL by Richard Storrs Willis, written in 1850 at Sears's request, and that in Commonwealth countries they are sung to NOEL, which Arthur Sullivan adapted in 1874 from an English melody. This page is the American tune.
Who wrote the words, and what are they about?
Edmund Sears, a Unitarian minister in Wayland, Massachusetts, wrote the five-stanza poem in 1849; it first appeared in The Christian Register of Boston on 29 December 1849. According to Wikipedia it is remarkable for looking at the world of its own time, with its "sin and strife" and the question of war and peace, rather than at Bethlehem.
Why was a note changed on this page?
The 1920 hymnal as typed in on Wikisource has C on the second note after the pick-up where Mutopia's typesetting and Wikipedia's score both have A, so the note was corrected to A; the correction is listed in the verification table.
Can I print this sheet music?
Yes. The words (1849), the tune (1850) and the 1920 edition are all out of copyright, and the sheet is made by this site. The tune NOEL, adapted by Sullivan in 1874, is also old, but it is not on this page.
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It Came Upon the Midnight Clear in real music: the numbers
In B♭ major the tune uses 8 of the 12 notes of the chromatic scale, 2 of them outside the key signature. It moves by step 38 times out of 65, 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 | F4 (degree 5) | 41.7% start on degree 5 |
| Last note | B♭4 (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 carol numbers are counted on the melody printed above.
How common B♭ major is
| Collection | Items with a key | Share in B♭ major | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| OpenScore Lieder | 1,462 | 4.8% | 10 of 24 |
| Mutopia | 1,974 | 4.8% | 8 of 24 |
| MusicBrainz works | 13,669 | 6.1% | 6 of 24 |
| MusicBrainz works | 5,340 | 5.2% | 11 of 24 |
| Open Opus work titles | 3,587 | 8.3% | 5 of 24 |
| AcousticBrainz recordings | 63,124 | 6.4% | 5 of 24 |
Counts of key signatures (and estimated major or minor) in the collections the site has measured; see the key page for B♭ 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
- 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 "It Came Upon the Midnight Clear"
Overview
"It Came Upon the Midnight Clear", sometimes rendered as "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear", is an 1849 poem and Christmas carol written by Edmund Sears, pastor of the Unitarian Church in Wayland, Massachusetts. In 1850, Sears' lyrics were set to "Carol", a tune written for the poem the same year at his request, by Richard Storrs Willis. This pairing remains the most popular in the United States, while in Commonwealth countries, the lyrics are set to "Noel", a later adaptation by Arthur Sullivan from an English melody.
History
Edmund Sears composed the five-stanza poem in common metre doubled during 1849. It first appeared on December 29, 1849, in The Christian Register in Boston, Massachusetts.
Sears served the Unitarian congregation in Wayland, Massachusetts, before moving on to a larger congregation at First Church of Christ, Unitarian, in Lancaster, also known as The Bulfinch Church, for its design by Charles Bulfinch. After seven years, he suffered a breakdown and returned to Wayland. He wrote It Came Upon the Midnight Clear while serving as a part-time preacher in Wayland. Writing during a period of personal melancholy, and with news of revolution in Europe and the United States' war with Mexico fresh in his mind, Sears portrayed the world as dark, full of "sin and strife", and not hearing the Christmas message.
Sears is said to have written these words at the request of his friend, William Parsons Lunt, pastor of United First Parish Church, Quincy, Massachusetts, for Lunt's Sunday school. One account says the carol was first performed by parishioners gathered in Sears' home on Christmas Eve, but to what tune the carol was sung is unknown as Willis' familiar melody was not written until the following year.
Melody
In 1850, Richard Storrs Willis, a composer who trained under Felix Mendelssohn, published a "choir study" that was originally paired with other lyrics. This tune eventually came to be known as "Carol". Pairings of Sears' lyrics with Willis' tune had already begun to appear by 1880, and it is still the most widely associated tune with Sears' lyrics in the United States.
In Commonwealth countries, the tune called "Noel", which was adapted from an English melody in 1874 by Arthur Sullivan, is the usual accompaniment. This tune also appears as an alternative in The Hymnal 1982, the hymnal of the United States Episcopal Church.
Source: Wikipedia, “It Came Upon the Midnight Clear” — CC BY-SA 4.0 — text excerpted; see the article for the full text and authors. Revision of 2026-04-28.
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 33, as transcribed on Wikisource, Mutopia Project, "Carol (hymntune)" (Steve Dunlop), Wikipedia, "It Came Upon the Midnight Clear" (score 1 in the article).