Christmas carol, sheet music with note names
Joy to the World: notes, key and chords
Joy to the World in D major, 2/4: all 57 notes with letter names, chords, range D4 to D5, public-domain words and a note-name 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
"Joy to the World" is 57 notes in 19 bars of 2/4, in D major, with a range of exactly an octave: D4 to D5. It opens with a scale coming down from the high note to the low one, and ends on D4. This page has the melody with letter names, a playable version, the chords of the 1920 hymnal setting, Isaac Watts's words as printed in that book, and the notes on how the tune was checked.
Joy to the World at a glance
- Key
- D major (two sharps)
- Time signature
- 2/4
- Range
- D4 to D5, 12 semitones
- Notes and bars
- 57 notes, 19 bars
- First note
- D5 (scale degree 1)
- Last note
- D4 (scale degree 1)
- Words
- Isaac Watts, 1719, from Psalm 98
- Tune
- ANTIOCH, arranged by Lowell Mason from themes attributed to Handel; first published 1836
- Hymn metre
- C.M. (common metre)
- Why it is free to use
- Watts died in 1748 and Mason in 1872; the edition used here is a US government hymnal of 1920
- Level
- Medium: wider than a major sixth (12 semitones); sixteenth notes; a leap of a minor sixth or more. How the level is worked out
- Tempo
- about quarter note = 100 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).
Joy to the World
D major · 2/4 · melody with note names
Key D major (two sharps: F♯, C♯) Range D4 to D5 Words Isaac Watts, 1719 Music tune ANTIOCH, arranged by Lowell Mason (1830s) from themes attributed to Handel
Scale of D major D E F♯ G A B C♯ I D: D F♯ A IV G: G B D V A: A C♯ E
Melody: The Army and Navy Hymnal (1920), hymn 31, as transcribed on Wikisource (public domain (1920 US government publication); transcription CC BY-SA 4.0; Wikisource page revision 11766384 of 2021-10-12), checked note by note against 3 other editions. Chord symbols are worked out from the four voices of that edition. Free to print and share. musictheoryprint.com/charts/joy-to-the-world-notes
Joy to the World: name the notes
D major · 2/4 · 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♯, C♯. The last note of a tune is usually the home note, D.
Check your answers against the sheet with the note names. Extra: circle every note that is a D, the home note of the key.
Melody: The Army and Navy Hymnal (1920), hymn 31, as transcribed on Wikisource (public domain (1920 US government publication); transcription CC BY-SA 4.0). Free to print and share. musictheoryprint.com/charts/joy-to-the-world-notes
The notes of Joy to the World, bar by bar
57 notes in 19 bars, in D major. Letter names, the do-re-mi syllables (movable do: do is D) 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | D C♯ B | do ti la | D A | I V |
| 2 | A G | sol fa | D | I |
| 3 | F♯ E | mi re | A | V |
| 4 | D A | do sol | D | I |
| 5 | B B | la la | G | IV |
| 6 | C♯ C♯ | ti ti | A | V |
| 7 | D D | do do | D | I |
| 8 | D C♯ B A | do ti la sol | G | IV |
| 9 | A G F♯ D | sol fa mi do | D | I |
| 10 | D C♯ B A | do ti la sol | G | IV |
| 11 | A G F♯ F♯ | sol fa mi mi | D | I |
| 12 | F♯ F♯ F♯ F♯ G | mi mi mi mi fa | ||
| 13 | A G F♯ | sol fa mi | ||
| 14 | E E E E F♯ | re re re re mi | A | V |
| 15 | G F♯ E | fa mi re | A7 | V7 |
| 16 | D D B | do do la | D | I |
| 17 | A G F♯ G | sol fa mi fa | ||
| 18 | F♯ E | mi re | A | V |
| 19 | D | do | D | 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, "Antioch (hymntune)" (Steve Dunlop): the two agree on the root and the major or minor quality of the chord at 38 of 38 beats in common.
What the tune is made of
How the melody moves
Each of the 56 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: F♯4 (13 times). Longest run of one repeated note: 6. Different pitches: 8, made from 7 note names (some are used in two octaves). Biggest leap: 12 semitones.
The words of Joy to the World
Verse 1
Joy to the world! the Lord is come;
Let earth receive her King;
Let every heart prepare him room,
And heaven and nature sing,
And heaven and nature sing,
And heaven and nature sing.
Verse 2
Joy to the world! the Saviour reigns;
Let men their songs employ
While fields and floods,
rocks, hills and plains
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat, repeat the sounding joy.
Verse 3
He rules the world with truth and grace,
And makes the nations prove
The glories of his righteousness,
And wonders of his love,
And wonders of his love
And wonders, and wonders of his love.
Source: The Army and Navy Hymnal (1920), hymn 31, as transcribed on Wikisource; public domain (1920 US government publication); transcription CC BY-SA 4.0; Wikisource page revision 11766384 of 2021-10-12. Words as printed in the hymnal and typed in on Wikisource; the hyphens that split words into syllables are taken out, and the capital L of "Lord" is restored. 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 31, as transcribed on Wikisource (public domain (1920 US government publication); transcription CC BY-SA 4.0; Wikisource page revision 11766384 of 2021-10-12). 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 57 notes that are found there, whatever key the other edition is in.
| Edition | Licence | Notes there | Same pitches | Same pitches and lengths |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mutopia Project, "Antioch (hymntune)" (Steve Dunlop)Mutopia-2008/01/13-1223 | Public Domain | 57 | 98% | 98% |
| Where it differs in pitch: bar 9 beat 2: this page has F♯, the other edition has A. | ||||
| Wikipedia, "Joy to the World" (score 1 in the article)revision 1343676954 of 2026-03-15 | CC BY-SA 4.0 | 57 | 98% | 96% |
| Where it differs in pitch: bar 16 beat 1: this page has D, the other edition has F♯. | ||||
| Wikimedia Commons, "JoyToTheWorld.MID"uploaded 2006-01-14, SHA-1 67011eba77 | Public domain | 63 | 100% | 93% |
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.
Joy to the World: questions people ask
What notes does "Joy to the World" start with?
The first eight notes are D C♯ B A G F♯ E D: a complete major scale played downwards, from the top note to the bottom note of the octave, on the words "Joy to the world, the Lord is come". That is why the carol is a good piece for practising scale steps.
What key is Joy to the World in?
The 1920 hymnal prints it in D major (two sharps), and so do Mutopia's typesetting and Wikipedia's score. D major is the number 4 key of 24 in the OpenScore Lieder Corpus (6.8% of 1,462 songs) and number 3 in the Mutopia Project (9.9% of 1,974 pieces).
Is "Joy to the World" really by Handel?
Wikipedia says the tune ANTIOCH was published as "From Handel" by Lowell Mason (first in 1836, then in 1839 and 1848), that its first four notes are the same as the first four of the chorus "Lift up your heads" in Handel's Messiah, and that Handel scholars dismiss the resemblance as chance; it adds that similar tunes were printed in the early 1830s, so a common older source is possible. Hymnals still often say "arranged from Handel", as the 1920 hymnal does.
Where is the run of repeated notes?
The longest run of one repeated note in the tune is 6 notes (all F♯), starting in bar 11. Play it as a steady pulse of eighth notes before the line moves again.
Do the other editions of the tune differ anywhere?
Yes, at one note each, in different places. The Mutopia edition has A where this page has F♯ (bar 9, beat 2). Wikipedia's score has F♯ where this page has D (bar 16, beat 1). This page keeps the note on which the hymnal and at least one other edition agree. Every difference is in the verification table.
Can I print Joy to the World for a class or a concert?
Yes. Words, tune and edition are all out of copyright, and the sheet is made by this site. There are two printable pages: the melody with note names, and a worksheet with the names left blank for students to fill in.
musictheoryprint.com · free to print and share
Joy to the World in real music: the numbers
In D major the tune uses 7 of the 12 notes of the chromatic scale, all of them inside the key. It moves by step 37 times out of 56, 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 | D5 (degree 1) | 18.2% start on degree 1 |
| Last note | D4 (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 D major is
| Collection | Items with a key | Share in D major | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| OpenScore Lieder | 1,462 | 6.8% | 4 of 24 |
| Mutopia | 1,974 | 9.9% | 3 of 24 |
| MusicBrainz works | 13,669 | 11.4% | 1 of 24 |
| MusicBrainz works | 5,340 | 11.0% | 1 of 24 |
| Open Opus work titles | 3,587 | 11.0% | 2 of 24 |
| AcousticBrainz recordings | 63,124 | 6.0% | 7 of 24 |
Counts of key signatures (and estimated major or minor) in the collections the site has measured; see the key page for D 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 "Joy to the World"
Overview
"Joy to the World" is an English hymn and Christmas carol. Written in 1719 by the English minister and hymnist Isaac Watts, the hymn is usually sung to an 1848 arrangement by the American composer Lowell Mason of a tune attributed to George Frideric Handel. The hymn's lyrics are a Christian interpretation of Psalm 98 and Genesis 3.
Since the 20th century, "Joy to the World" has been the most-published Christmas carol in North America., it was published in 1,387 hymnals in North America, according to the Dictionary of North American Hymnology.
Origin
"Joy to the World" was written by the English minister and hymnist Isaac Watts, based on a Christian interpretation of Psalm 98 and Genesis 3. The song was first published in 1719 under the title "The Messiah's Coming and Kingdom" in Watts's collection The Psalms of David: Imitated in the Language of the New Testament, and applied to the Christian State and Worship. In it, he asserts that Psalms 96-98 refer to "Christ's Incarnation, his setting up his Gospel-Kingdom to judge or rule the Gentiles, and the Judgment and Destruction of the Heathen Idols". The paraphrase is Watts's Christological interpretation of Psalm 98. In first and second stanzas, Watts writes of heaven and earth rejoicing at the coming of the King. Stanza three, an interlude that alludes to Genesis 3:17–19 rather than to the psalm text, speaks of Christ's blessings extending victoriously over the realm of sin. The cheerful repetition of the phrase "far as the curse is found" has caused this stanza to be omitted from some hymnals. But the line makes joyful sense when understood from the New Testament eyes through which Watts interprets the psalm. Stanza four celebrates Christ's rule over the nations. The nations are called to celebrate because God's faithfulness to the House of Israel had brought salvation to the world.
Music
Watts's 1719 preface says the verses "are fitted to the Tunes of the Old Psalm-Book" and includes the instruction, "To the Common Tunes sing all entitled Common Metre." It is not clear whether "Old Psalm-Book" means Playford's 1677 publication or some other. Sternhold and Hopkins's "old version" and Tate and Brady's "new version", among others, circulated at that time as well. In the late 18th century, "Joy to the World" was printed with music several times, but the tunes were unrelated to the one commonly used today.
Source: Wikipedia, “Joy to the World” — CC BY-SA 4.0 — text excerpted; see the article for the full text and authors. Revision of 2026-03-15.
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 31, as transcribed on Wikisource, Mutopia Project, "Antioch (hymntune)" (Steve Dunlop), Wikipedia, "Joy to the World" (score 1 in the article), Wikimedia Commons, "JoyToTheWorld.MID".