Easy piano song, sheet music with note names
Scarborough Fair chords: letters, piano notes and easy sheet music
Scarborough Fair chords and piano notes: the whole tune with letter names and octaves, in D minor, 3/4, C4 to D5. Play it, print it (A4, 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
Scarborough Fair on this page is the whole tune (one verse, 16 bars): 34 notes in 16 bars of 3/4, in D minor, with a range of C4 to D5 (14 semitones). It begins on D4 and ends on D4. Below: the letter names with octave numbers, the notes on the staff, a version you can play, a note-name worksheet and the checks that were run.
Scarborough Fair at a glance
- Key
- D minor (one flat)
- Time signature
- 3/4: three beats to the bar, each a quarter note
- Range
- C4 to D5, 14 semitones
- Notes and bars
- 34 notes, 16 bars
- First note
- D4 (scale degree 1)
- Last note
- D4 (scale degree 1)
- Notes outside the key signature
- B♮ (accidentals in the tune)
- Ballad
- a traditional Northern English ballad that lists impossible tasks given to a former lover (Wikipedia, Roud 12, Child 2)
- This melody
- the version “commonly used today”; Wikipedia says it was sung to Ewan MacColl in 1947 by Mark Anderson (1874 to 1953) and first recorded with this melody in 1956
- Another melody
- Frank Kidson published a different melody in 1891 (Traditional Tunes); it is not the one on this page
- Not on this page
- the Simon & Garfunkel arrangement of 1966, which is a separate work
- Part on this page
- the whole melody of one verse
- Tempo on this page
- dotted half note = 30; a gentle practice speed chosen for this page; the sources give no tempo (the MIDI files play at different speeds)
- Hands
- Right hand: the melody shown on the staff. The left hand is not shown on this page; play the tune with the right hand alone, or add any simple bass notes.
- Level
- Medium: wider than a major sixth (14 semitones); wider than an octave; 1 note outside the key signature. 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 dotted half note = 30: a gentle practice speed chosen for this page; the sources give no tempo (the MIDI files play at different speeds).
Scarborough Fair
D minor · 3/4 · melody with note names
Key D minor (one flat: B♭) Range C4 to D5 Words traditional ballad (the Child ballad “The Elfin Knight” is traced to 1670) Music traditional melody, collected from Mark Anderson in 1947
Scale of D minor D E F G A B♭ C Middle C is C4, the C nearest the middle of the keyboard
Melody: Wikipedia, "Scarborough Fair (ballad)" (score 3 in the article, the version commonly used today) (CC BY-SA 4.0; revision 1356204759 of 2026-05-26), checked note by note against 2 other sources. Free to print and share under the same licence, CC BY-SA 4.0. musictheoryprint.com/charts/scarborough-fair-notes
Scarborough Fair: name the notes
D minor · 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 flat: B♭. The home note of the key is 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: Wikipedia, "Scarborough Fair (ballad)" (score 3 in the article, the version commonly used today) (CC BY-SA 4.0). Free to print and share under the same licence, CC BY-SA 4.0. musictheoryprint.com/charts/scarborough-fair-notes
The notes of Scarborough Fair, bar by bar
34 notes in 16 bars, in D minor. 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.
| Bar | Right hand (melody) | do re mi |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | D4 D4 | do do |
| 2 | A4 A4 A4 | sol sol sol |
| 3 | E4 F4 E4 | re ri re |
| 4 | D4 | do |
| 5 | rest A4 C5 | (rest) sol li |
| 6 | D5 C5 | do li |
| 7 | A4 B4 G4 | sol la fa |
| 8 | A4 D5 | sol do |
| 9 | D5 D5 | do do |
| 10 | C5 A4 | li sol |
| 11 | A4 G4 F4 | sol fa ri |
| 12 | E4 | re |
| 13 | D4 A4 | do sol |
| 14 | G4 F4 | fa ri |
| 15 | E4 D4 C4 | re do li |
| 16 | D4 | do |
do re mi uses movable do: do is D.
Which keys to press
The tune spans 9 letter names, from C4 to D5, more than an octave, so the hand has to travel along the keyboard. 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 33 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 (9 times). Longest run of one repeated note: 3. Different pitches: 9, made from 7 note names (some are used in two octaves). Biggest leap: 7 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 Wikipedia, "Scarborough Fair (ballad)" (score 3 in the article, the version commonly used today) (CC BY-SA 4.0; revision 1356204759 of 2026-05-26). 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wikimedia Commons, "Scarborough-fair.mid"uploaded 2010-02-04, SHA-1 36940ab903; in another key, compared after moving it by 7 semitones | Public domain | 320 | 100% | 85% |
| Wikimedia Commons, "Scarborough Fair (ballad).mid"uploaded 2021-12-02, SHA-1 26b1d89dcb | CC0 | 70 | 100% | 21% |
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.
Scarborough Fair: questions people ask
What are the letter notes of Scarborough Fair?
The first notes, with their octave numbers, are D4 D4 A4 A4 A4 E4 F4 E4 D4 A4 C5 D5. Every note of the whole 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 Scarborough Fair in?
On this page it is in D minor (one flat), in 3/4: three beats to the bar, each a quarter note. D minor has one flat, B♭. The tune is in the Dorian mode, which Wikipedia says the Scarborough Fair melodies often use: the sixth note above D is B natural, so every B in the tune is written with a natural sign and the B♭ of the key signature is never played.
Why are there sharps, flats or naturals that are not in the key signature?
The key signature of D minor gives one flat. In this tune the note is written with an accidental sign (B♮): bar 7: B♮4. A sharp, flat or natural sign before a note applies to that note for the rest of the bar.
Which hand plays what, and how high and low does it go?
The range is C4 to D5, 14 semitones; 16.3% of the first vocal lines in the OpenScore Lieder Corpus have a smaller range and 72.6% a larger one. The tune spans 9 letter names, from C4 to D5, more than an octave, so the hand has to travel along the keyboard.
Is this the whole of Scarborough Fair?
Yes, for the tune: the 16 bars are the whole melody of one verse, and the next verses use it again. The words are not printed on this page, and the chords are quoted in the answer below.
Is Scarborough Fair free to print and share?
The ballad is traditional: Wikipedia says its lyrics have something in common with the Scottish ballad “The Elfin Knight”, which has been traced as far back as 1670, and that the Scarborough Fair refrain dates to 19th-century versions. The melody on this page is the one Wikipedia calls the version commonly used today; Wikipedia says it was sung to Ewan MacColl in 1947 by Mark Anderson, a retired lead miner. This page prints only that bare melody. It does not print the 1966 Simon & Garfunkel arrangement (“Scarborough Fair/Canticle”, an arrangement in counterpoint), which is a separate work, and recordings and other arrangements have their own rights. The notes are read from the score printed in the English Wikipedia article (CC BY-SA 4.0), so the sheets carry that credit line and may be printed and shared under the same licence. This is not legal advice, and copyright rules differ between countries.
How do I know the notes are right?
The melody is read by a program from Wikipedia, "Scarborough Fair (ballad)" (score 3 in the article, the version commonly used today), never typed in. A second program then compares it, note by note and in order, with 2 other sources: MIDI file “Scarborough-fair” (100% of its notes); MIDI file “Scarborough Fair (ballad)” (100% of its notes). 2 of the 2 agree with this page on every pitch. Where they differ, the page lists every note and bar, so you can see the difference.
What are the chords of Scarborough Fair?
The score printed in the Wikipedia article for this version has a chord line, one chord to a bar, and these are its 16 bars (a space inside a bar means two chords): Dm | Dm | Am | Dm | Am | Dm | Dm G | Dm | Dm | Am | Dm | Am | Dm | Am7 | Am7 | Dm. They are the chords of that score as printed, not chords worked out by this page; this page shows no chord row, because the edition it reads has only the melody line. Any chord chart for the song is an accompaniment to this melody, so check it against the notes in the table.
Is this the Simon & Garfunkel version?
The melody is the one Simon & Garfunkel sang, but the page prints only the tune. Wikipedia says the duo learned the ballad from Martin Carthy, who had picked up the tune from a songbook by Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger, and that their 1966 recording is an arrangement in counterpoint with a second song, “Canticle”. The counter-melody and the arrangement are not on this page.
Where does this melody come from?
Wikipedia says the version using the melody later used by Simon & Garfunkel was sung to Ewan MacColl in 1947 by Mark Anderson, a retired lead miner from Middleton-in-Teesdale in County Durham; no audio recording of Anderson’s version was ever made. The first recorded version using this best-known melody was by Audrey Coppard on the 1956 album English Folk Songs. Frank Kidson’s 1891 collection has a different melody.
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Scarborough Fair in real music: the numbers
In D minor the tune uses 7 of the 12 notes of the chromatic scale, 1 of them outside the key signature. It moves by step 18 times out of 33, and ends on degree 1.
This tune against real art songs
| What | This tune | OpenScore Lieder (352 minor-key songs) |
|---|---|---|
| First note | D4 (degree 1) | 28.4% start on degree 1 |
| Last note | D4 (degree 1) | 59.4% 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 minor-key song whose key signature does not change; the numbers for this tune are counted on the melody printed above.
How common D minor is
| Collection | Items with a key | Share in D minor | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| OpenScore Lieder | 1,462 | 3.6% | 13 of 24 |
| Mutopia | 1,974 | 5.7% | 7 of 24 |
| MusicBrainz works | 13,669 | 6.3% | 5 of 24 |
| MusicBrainz works | 5,340 | 8.2% | 4 of 24 |
| Open Opus work titles | 3,587 | 6.5% | 8 of 24 |
| AcousticBrainz recordings | 63,124 | 6.4% | 6 of 24 |
Counts of key signatures (and estimated major or minor) in the collections the site has measured; see the key page for D minor.
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
- 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 “Scarborough Fair”
Overview
"Scarborough Fair" is a traditional Northern English ballad. The song lists a number of impossible tasks given to a former lover who lives in Scarborough, North Yorkshire. The "Scarborough/Whittingham Fair" variant was most common in Yorkshire and Northumbria, where it was sung to various melodies, often using Dorian mode, with refrains resembling "parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme" and "Then she'll be a true love of mine." It appears in Traditional Tunes (1891) by Frank Kidson, who claims to have collected it from Whitby.
History
The lyrics of "Scarborough Fair" appear to have something in common with a Scottish ballad titled "The Elfin Knight", collected by Francis James Child as Child Ballad #2, which has been traced as far back as 1670. In this ballad, an elf threatens to abduct a young woman to be his lover unless she can perform an impossible task ("For thou must shape a sark to me / Without any cut or heme, quoth he"); she responds with a list of tasks that he must first perform ("I have an aiker of good ley-land / Which lyeth low by yon sea-strand").
Dozens of versions existed by the end of the 18th century. A number of older versions refer to locations other than Scarborough Fair, including Wittingham Fair, Cape Ann, "twixt Berwik and Lyne", etc. Many versions do not mention a place name and are often generically titled ("The Lovers' Tasks", "My Father Gave Me an Acre of Land", etc.).
Source: Wikipedia, “Scarborough Fair (ballad)” — CC BY-SA 4.0 — text excerpted; see the article for the full text and authors. Revision of 2026-05-26.
Sources and licences for the text, scores and recordings on this page are on the credits page.
Sources: Wikipedia, "Scarborough Fair (ballad)" (score 3 in the article, the version commonly used today), Wikimedia Commons, "Scarborough-fair.mid", Wikimedia Commons, "Scarborough Fair (ballad).mid".