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Piano sheet music for kids · Carol · Level 3: Notes below middle C
God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen
Free beginner piano sheet music: A minor, 4/4, 19 bars and a pickup. 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
The one minor-key carol in this set. It is in A minor, the white keys of C major centred on A, which gives it its old, stern sound. After the pickup, “God”, the thumb sits on the A below middle C with the hand covering A to E, dipping to the G below on “let” and “was”; the tune climbs to the A above middle C in bars 10 and 17, where the hand moves up into C position and finger 5 stretches to A. Bars 12 and 16 have an “O” held over two notes, and bar 15 a pair of quavers on “com-fort”. The left hand plays block chords on beats 1 and 3.
Practice tip: Notice how often the tune goes A, E, E, D or A, B, C, D: the first eight bars are built from those two shapes. In the refrain, “O ti-dings of com-fort and joy”, count the “O” as two beats.
The words
God rest ye merry, gentlemen, let nothing you dismay. Remember Christ our Saviour was born on Christmas day, to save us all from Satan's power when we were gone astray; O tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy; O tidings of comfort and joy.
A short history
One of the oldest English carols still sung, God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen was known by the 16th century and was printed on cheap broadsheets in London around 1760; William Sandys published the tune we use in his Christmas Carols, Ancient and Modern in 1833. The comma matters: “God rest ye merry” means “God keep you cheerful”, so the song is wishing merriment to the gentlemen, not addressing merry gentlemen.
It is the carol in Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol (1843). On Christmas Eve a boy stoops at Scrooge’s keyhole to sing “God bless you, merry gentleman” and Scrooge seizes a ruler with such energy that the singer flees in terror.
The tune is in the minor, which was once common for carols and is now rare, and that dark marching sound is a large part of why it has lasted.
Quick facts
- Tune
- Traditional (English, 16th century; printed 1833)
- Key
- A minor
- Time signature
- 4/4
- Length
- 19 bars and a pickup
- Tempo
- Steadily, crotchet = 112
- Difficulty
- Level 3: Notes below middle C (piece 74 of 201)
- Type
- Carol
- 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
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