Home › Tools › Piano Sheet Music for Kids › All Through the Night
Piano sheet music for kids · Folk song · Level 3: Notes below middle C
All Through the Night
Free beginner piano sheet music: C major, 4/4, 16 bars. Press Play to hear it on a real piano, slow it down, or hear one hand at a time; click any note to start from there; print it for the music stand.
About this arrangement
A Welsh lullaby, “Ar Hyd y Nos”, with Harold Boulton’s English words. The rhythm is gentle and simple, mostly a dotted crotchet and a quaver (eighth note), long-short, then crotchets, but the hand moves: the first, second and last lines sit low, from the G below middle C up to D, with the thumb on that G, and the third line (“Soft the drow-sy hours”) climbs higher, up to the A above middle C, so the hand shifts up and comes back down. The left hand plays a bass note and a chord on each half bar, through C, G, F, A minor and D minor.
Practice tip: Play it slowly and quietly, as if someone is asleep. Practise the move between bar 8 and bar 9 on its own, so the hand is in place for “Soft the drow-sy hours”.
The words
Sleep, my child, and peace attend thee, all through the night; guardian angels God will send thee, all through the night. Soft the drowsy hours are creeping, hill and vale in slumber sleeping, I my loving vigil keeping, all through the night.
A short history
The tune was first printed in 1784 in Musical and Poetical Relics of the Welsh Bards, a collection of Welsh harp music by Edward Jones, who later became harpist to the Prince of Wales. Its Welsh name, “Ar Hyd y Nos”, means “all through the night”.
The Welsh words sung today are by the poet John Ceiriog Hughes (1832 to 1887). The English lullaby words here, “Sleep, my child, and peace attend thee”, were written by Sir Harold Boulton (1859 to 1935) in 1884, the same year he wrote the words of The Skye Boat Song.
The tune has also carried hymns, among them Reginald Heber’s “God, that madest earth and heaven”. It is a favourite of Welsh male voice choirs, and it is sometimes sung at Christmas.
Quick facts
- Tune
- Traditional (Welsh, printed 1784)
- Words
- Harold Boulton, 1884
- Key
- C major
- Time signature
- 4/4
- Length
- 16 bars
- Tempo
- Peacefully, crotchet = 72
- Difficulty
- Level 3: Notes below middle C (piece 65 of 201)
- Type
- Folk song
- Hands
- Both: melody in the right hand, chords in the left
- Copyright
- Public domain tune; arrangement by Digital Greenhouse, free for personal and classroom use
Questions and answers
What key is All Through the Night in?
How long is it?
Is All Through the Night out of copyright?
What is the hardest part?
Can I print it?
← More folk songs · All 201 pieces: piano sheet music for kids
🔒 Runs entirely in your browser: nothing is uploaded and no account is needed. Once loaded, the page and the piano keep working offline.