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Piano sheet music for kids · Carol · Level 3: Notes below middle C
The Holly and the Ivy
Free beginner piano sheet music: C major, 3/4, 16 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 English folk carol in waltz time, with the tune Cecil Sharp collected in 1909. It starts on a pickup, “The”, and the first bar has the biggest leap in the piece, from middle C up to A for “hol-ly and the”, so the little finger stretches. Pairs of quavers (eighth notes) carry the quick words, and for “in the wood” the thumb drops below middle C to A and G, then comes back. The verse and the refrain, “The ri-sing of the sun”, use almost the same music, written out twice. The left hand plays a bass note and two chords in each bar.
Practice tip: Learn the first four bars and you have most of the piece: the refrain starts the same way. In bar 6 move the whole hand down for “in the wood”, then straight back up for “the hol-ly”.
The words
The holly and the ivy, when they are both full grown, of all the trees that are in the wood, the holly bears the crown. The rising of the sun, and the running of the deer, the playing of the merry organ, sweet singing in the choir.
A short history
The Holly and the Ivy is number 514 in the Roud Folk Song Index. Its words were printed on cheap song sheets in Birmingham in the early 19th century, and a collector in 1861 claimed they came from a sheet about a century and a half older, though no copy that old has been found. Holly and ivy were linked with Christmas long before that, because both stay green through the winter.
The tune everyone sings was noted down in 1909 by the folk song collector Cecil Sharp from Mary Clayton, who sang it to him in Chipping Campden in Gloucestershire. Sharp published words and tune together in English Folk-Carols in 1911, and that version has been the standard one ever since.
The refrain has nothing to do with holly at all: it is a string of happy pictures, the rising sun, the running deer, the merry organ and the singing in the choir.
Quick facts
- Tune
- Traditional (English; tune as collected by Cecil Sharp, 1909)
- Key
- C major
- Time signature
- 3/4
- Length
- 16 bars and a pickup
- Tempo
- Cheerfully, crotchet = 108
- Difficulty
- Level 3: Notes below middle C (piece 70 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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