Christmas carol, sheet music with note names
The First Noel chords and notes: letter names, key and melody
The First Noel chords and notes in D major, 3/4: all 73 notes with letter names, chord symbols, range D4 to D5, 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
"The First Noel" (also spelled "Nowell") is 73 notes in 24 bars of 3/4, in D major, with a range of D4 to D5 (12 semitones). It starts and ends on F♯4, the 3rd note of the scale. Below: the melody with a letter name under every note, a version you can play, the chords of the Mutopia setting, the words, and the checks that were run, including a second file that has a more decorated version of the tune.
The First Noel at a glance
- Key
- D major (two sharps)
- Time signature
- 3/4
- Range
- D4 to D5, 12 semitones
- Notes and bars
- 73 notes, 24 bars
- First note
- F♯4 (scale degree 3)
- Last note
- F♯4
- Words
- Traditional English; Wikipedia: of Cornish origin, current form first published in 1823 and 1833
- Tune
- Traditional English; Wikipedia quotes Anne Gilchrist (1915) that it was not recorded before Sandys's publication
- Why it is free to use
- The carol was printed in 1823 and 1833; the edition used is a public-domain typesetting of a hymnal tune, checked against a CC0 file. John Stainer's four-part arrangement (1871) is not used
- Level
- Easy: wider than a major sixth (12 semitones). How the level is worked out
- Tempo
- about quarter note = 107 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).
The First Noel
D major · 3/4 · melody with note names
Key D major (two sharps: F♯, C♯) Range D4 to D5 Words Traditional English (the article says the carol is of Cornish origin) Music Traditional English tune; Wikipedia: current form first published in 1823 and 1833, edited by William Sandys and Davies Gilbert
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: Mutopia Project, "The First Noel (hymntune)" (Steve Dunlop) (Public Domain; Mutopia-2008/01/13-1243), 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/the-first-noel-notes
The First Noel: name the notes
D major · 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 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: Mutopia Project, "The First Noel (hymntune)" (Steve Dunlop) (Public Domain). Free to print and share. musictheoryprint.com/charts/the-first-noel-notes
The notes of The First Noel, bar by bar
73 notes in 24 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 | F♯ E D E | mi re do re | D | I |
| 2 | F♯ G A | mi fa sol | Bm A | vi V |
| 3 | B C♯ D C♯ | la ti do ti | Em D F♯m | ii I iii |
| 4 | B A | la sol | G D | IV I |
| 5 | B C♯ D C♯ | la ti do ti | G D | IV I |
| 6 | B A B | la sol la | Em D G | ii I IV |
| 7 | C♯ D A | ti do sol | C♯dim D | vii° I |
| 8 | G F♯ | fa mi | A7 D | V7 I |
| 9 | F♯ E D E | mi re do re | F♯m D | iii I |
| 10 | F♯ G A | mi fa sol | Bm A | vi V |
| 11 | B C♯ D C♯ | la ti do ti | Em D F♯m | ii I iii |
| 12 | B A | la sol | G D | IV I |
| 13 | B C♯ D C♯ | la ti do ti | G D | IV I |
| 14 | B A B | la sol la | Em D G | ii I IV |
| 15 | C♯ D A | ti do sol | C♯dim D | vii° I |
| 16 | G F♯ | fa mi | A7 D | V7 I |
| 17 | F♯ E D E | mi re do re | F♯m D | iii I |
| 18 | F♯ G A | mi fa sol | Bm F♯m | vi iii |
| 19 | D C♯ B | do ti la | D G | I IV |
| 20 | B A | la sol | D | I |
| 21 | A D C♯ | sol do ti | A Bm D | V vi I |
| 22 | B A B | la sol la | G D Bm | IV I vi |
| 23 | C♯ D A | ti do sol | C♯dim D | vii° I |
| 24 | G F♯ | fa mi | A7 D | V7 I |
What the tune is made of
How the melody moves
Each of the 72 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 (14 times). Longest run of one repeated note: 2. Different pitches: 8, made from 7 note names (some are used in two octaves). Biggest leap: 5 semitones.
The words of The First Noel
The wording of Carols, New and Old (1871)
Verse 1
The first Nowell the angel did say
Was to certain poor shepherds in fields as they lay;
In fields where they lay, keeping their sheep,
On a cold winter's night that was so deep
Refrain (sung after every verse)
Nowell, Nowell, Nowell, Nowell,
Born is the King of Israel.
Verse 2
They looked up and saw a star,
Shining in the east, beyond them far
And to the earth it gave great light,
And so it continued both day and night
Verse 3
And by the light of that same star,
Three Wise Men came from country far;
To seek for a King was their intent,
And to follow the star whersoever it went
Verse 4
This star drew nigh to the north-west;
O'er Bethlehem it took its rest;
And there it did both stop and stay
Right over the place where Jesus lay
Verse 5
Then entered in those Wise Men three,
Full reverently upon their knee,
And offered there in his presence,
Their gold and myrrh and frankincense
Verse 6
Then let us all with one accord
Sing praises to our heavenly Lord
That hath made heaven and earth of nought,
And with his blood mankind hath bought
Source: Wikipedia, "The First Noel", section Textual comparison; traditional words, public domain; page text CC BY-SA 4.0; revision 1330284312 of 2025-12-30. Wikipedia compares three books. This is its first column, which it says is the version used in Bramley and Stainer's Carols, New and Old; the traditional words are centuries old. The other two columns (a Cornish gallery version of 1929 and a version of 1916) have different wording and are not printed. Books differ in the words, so yours may too.
How the notes were checked
Not one note on this page was typed in or remembered. The melody is read by a program from Mutopia Project, "The First Noel (hymntune)" (Steve Dunlop) (Public Domain; Mutopia-2008/01/13-1243). 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 73 notes that are found there, whatever key the other edition is in.
| Edition | Licence | Notes there | Same pitches | Same pitches and lengths |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wikimedia Commons, "First Nowell.mid"uploaded 2020-12-18, SHA-1 18876a6d87 | CC0 | 94 | 100% | 96% |
| Wikimedia Commons, "First Nowell stainer.mid"uploaded 2018-05-25, SHA-1 0593150300 | Public domain | 82 | 92% | 86% |
| Where it differs in pitch: bar 5 beat 3: this page has C♯, the other edition has no matching note; bar 6 beat 1: this page has B, the other edition has no matching note; bar 6 beat 2: this page has A, the other edition has no matching note; bar 6 beat 3: this page has B, the other edition has no matching note; bar 7 beat 1: this page has C♯, the other edition has no matching note; bar 7 beat 2: this page has D, the other edition has no matching note. | ||||
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.
The First Noel: questions people ask
What are the notes of "The First Noel"?
In D major the opening, "The first Noel the angel did say", is F♯ E D E F♯ G A. The whole tune uses 7 note names (F♯ E D G A B C♯), which make 8 different pitches. Every note is on the printable sheet above.
What key and time signature is "The First Noel" in?
This page has D major (two sharps) and 3/4. The CC0 MIDI file used as a check is also in D major. 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).
Why does the tune feel as if it repeats?
Because it does. Wikipedia says the melody is one musical phrase repeated twice, followed by a refrain that is a variation on that phrase, and that all three phrases end on the third of the scale. In the notes decoded for this page the opening four notes F♯ E D E start a phrase 3 times, the first two phrases have the same 25 notes and every phrase ends on F♯, the 3rd note of D major.
What chords go with "The First Noel"? What are the guitar chords?
Yes, the chord symbols are printed above the staff on the sheet. A program read them from the four voices of the Mutopia setting (typeset by Steve Dunlop from the cyberhymnal.org transcription), at the start of every beat, and the page shows them only when the reading is consistent (every chord is one that fits the key). They are the chords of that one setting; a different book may harmonise the tune differently. The tune uses 8 different chords, and the first ones are D Bm A Em D F♯m G D. The home chord is D major (D F♯ A): 34 of the 73 notes of the melody are one of those three notes.
Is this the version with John Stainer's notes?
Not exactly. Wikipedia says that today the carol is usually performed in a four-part arrangement by John Stainer, first published in his Carols, New and Old in 1871. A MIDI file of Stainer's version on Wikimedia Commons has 82 notes where this page has 73, and 6 of this page's notes (in bars 5 to 7) have no match in it: its tune is more decorated, with extra notes in the line. This page keeps the plainer tune, which the Mutopia setting and a CC0 MIDI file (100% of the notes in the same order) agree on.
Where does "The First Noel" come from, and what does Nowell mean?
Wikipedia says it is of Cornish origin, and that its current form was first published in Carols Ancient and Modern (1823) and Gilbert and Sandys Carols (1833), both edited by William Sandys and arranged by Davies Gilbert. "Nowell" is an old English word for "Christmas", from the French Noel, and it came to mean a Christmas song or carol.
Can I print this sheet music?
Yes. The words and the tune were in print by 1833, the setting is a public-domain typesetting from the Mutopia Project, and the sheet is made by this site. Stainer's 1871 arrangement is also old, but it is not used here.
musictheoryprint.com · free to print and share
The First Noel 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 63 times out of 72, and ends on degree 3.
This tune against real art songs
| What | This tune | OpenScore Lieder (880 major-key songs) |
|---|---|---|
| First note | F♯4 (degree 3) | 32.5% start on degree 3 |
| Last note | F♯4 (degree 3) | 8.6% end on degree 3 |
| 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 "The First Noel"
Overview
"The First Nowell" (or Nowel), modernised as "The First Noel" (or Noël), is a traditional English Christmas carol with Cornish origins most likely from the early modern period, although possibly earlier. It is listed as number 682 in the Roud Folk Song Index.
Origin and history
"The First Nowell" is of Cornish origin. Its current form was first published in Carols Ancient and Modern (1823) and Gilbert and Sandys Carols (1833), both of which were edited by William Sandys and arranged and edited by Davies Gilbert (who also wrote extra lyrics) for Hymns and Carols of God.
Nowell is an Early Modern English synonym of "Christmas" from French Noël, "the Christmas season", ultimately from Latin natalis [dies] "[day] of birth". The word was regularly used in the burden of carols in the Middle Ages towards the early modern period; Sir Christèmas (Ritson Manuscript), "Nowell sing we now all and some" (Trinity Carol Roll) and "Nowel – out of youre slepe arise and wake" (Selden Carol Book) being 15th century examples. As a result, the word also came to be used to mean a Christmas song or carol.
The melody is unusual among English folk melodies in that it consists of one musical phrase repeated twice, followed by a refrain which is a variation on that phrase. All three phrases end on the third of the scale. Writing in the Journal of the Folk-Song Society in 1915, Anne Gilchrist notes it was not recorded prior to Sandys' publication. She speculated based on a set of church gallery parts discovered in Westmorland that the tune may have had its origin as a treble part to another carol "Hark, hark what news the angels bring"; her suggestion was that the treble part was passed down orally and was later remembered as the melody rather than a harmony. A conjectural reconstruction of this earlier version can be found in The New Oxford Book of Carols.
Today, "The First Nowell" is usually performed in a four-part hymn arrangement by the English composer John Stainer, first published in his Carols, New and Old in 1871. Variations of its theme are included in Victor Hely-Hutchinson's Carol Symphony.
Source: Wikipedia, “The First Noel” — CC BY-SA 4.0 — text excerpted; see the article for the full text and authors. Revision of 2025-12-30.
Sources and licences for the text, scores and recordings on this page are on the credits page.
Sources: Mutopia Project, "The First Noel (hymntune)" (Steve Dunlop), Wikimedia Commons, "First Nowell.mid", Wikimedia Commons, "First Nowell stainer.mid", Wikipedia: The First Noel.