Silent Night
Silent night, holy night, all is calm, all is bright
Music: Franz Xaver Gruber, 1818 · Words: Joseph Mohr, 1816, tr. John Freeman Young, 1859 · public domain
Key: C majorRange: C4–F5
Public domain · free · no sign-up
15 favorite carols, from Silent Night to Jingle Bells. Pick your instrument and every Christmas song is written in the right key: for B♭ trumpet and clarinet, E♭ alto sax, horn in F, bass clef for trombone and tuba, or concert pitch for flute, violin and piano. Listen, print it as a PDF, or download MIDI and MusicXML.
Choose your instrumentYour instrument
For Flute: written at concert pitch.
If a melody sits too high or too low for your instrument, it moves by an octave.
The carols
Melody and first verse, as printed in hymnals and carol books. Listen to every carol, print it as a PDF, or edit it in MuseScore and similar programs. All carols are in the public domain: copy them, share them with your band and perform them at church, at school or at the Christmas concert.
Silent night, holy night, all is calm, all is bright
Music: Franz Xaver Gruber, 1818 · Words: Joseph Mohr, 1816, tr. John Freeman Young, 1859 · public domain
Key: C majorRange: C4–F5
O come, all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant
Music: John Francis Wade, 1751 · Words: John Francis Wade, 1751, tr. Frederick Oakeley, 1841 · public domain
Key: G majorRange: D4–D5
Joy to the world, the Lord is come! Let earth receive her King
Music: Lowell Mason, 1839, after George Frideric Handel · Words: Isaac Watts, 1719 · public domain
Key: D majorRange: D4–D5
Hark! the herald angels sing, “Glory to the newborn King”
Music: Felix Mendelssohn, 1840, adapted by William H. Cummings, 1855 · Words: Charles Wesley, 1739, alt. George Whitefield, 1753 · public domain
Key: F majorRange: C4–D5
Deck the halls with boughs of holly, fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la
Music: traditional Welsh (Nos Galan), printed 1794 · Words: traditional, after Thomas Oliphant, 1862 · public domain
Key: F majorRange: E4–F5
Dashing through the snow in a one-horse open sleigh
Music: James Lord Pierpont, 1857, chorus as printed 1876 · Words: James Lord Pierpont, 1857 · public domain
Key: F majorRange: C4–D5
The first Noel the angel did say was to certain poor shepherds in fields as they lay
Music: traditional English, printed 1833 · Words: traditional English, printed 1823 · public domain
Key: D majorRange: D4–D5
God rest ye merry, gentlemen, let nothing you dismay
Music: traditional English, printed c. 1815 · Words: traditional English, c. 1760 · public domain
Key: E minorRange: D4–E5
Away in a manger, no crib for a bed
Music: James R. Murray, 1887 · Words: anonymous, 1882 · public domain
Key: F majorRange: C4–C5
Once in royal David's city stood a lowly cattle shed
Music: Henry John Gauntlett, 1849 · Words: Cecil Frances Alexander, 1848 · public domain
Key: F majorRange: C4–D5
O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie
Music: Lewis H. Redner, 1868 · Words: Phillips Brooks, 1868 · public domain
Key: F majorRange: C4–D5
Angels we have heard on high, sweetly singing o'er the plains
Music: traditional French (Gloria), 1842, arr. Charles L. Hutchins, 1891 · Words: French carol, tr. James Chadwick, 1860 · public domain
Key: F majorRange: C4–D5
We three kings of Orient are, bearing gifts we traverse afar
Music: John Henry Hopkins Jr., 1857 · Words: John Henry Hopkins Jr., 1857 · public domain
Key: E minorRange: D4–D5
It came upon the midnight clear, that glorious song of old
Music: Richard Storrs Willis, 1850 · Words: Edmund H. Sears, 1849 · public domain
Key: B♭ majorRange: D4–D5
Good King Wenceslas looked out on the Feast of Stephen
Music: Piae Cantiones, 1582 (Tempus adest floridum) · Words: John Mason Neale, 1853 · public domain
Key: F majorRange: C4–C5
Your own music
Your brass group or choir plays its own arrangement? Photograph it, listen to it and transpose it for your instrument: neumascan reads printed parts, and as a beta also choir scores and full scores, and gives you your part as a PDF to print. The start of every piece is free.
Photo or PDF
… or drop it here. JPEG, PNG, HEIC or PDF, up to 8 MB.
Your first scan needs no sign-in; for more you create a free account. Your photo is sent to an AI service for recognition and stays in your library: 90 days without an account, with one until you delete it. Please only upload music you are allowed to use. Privacy details (German).
Keys
Carol books print the melody at concert pitch, for piano, voice, flute and violin. Trumpet, clarinet, sax and horn are transposing instruments: their part is written higher so that everything sounds right together. A carol in C major then reads:
| Instrument | Pitched in | Written | Key |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flute, oboe, violin, piano | C | as it sounds | C major |
| Trumpet, flugelhorn, clarinet, soprano sax | B♭ | a major second higher | D major |
| Tenor sax, baritone (treble clef) | B♭ | a major ninth higher | D major |
| Alto sax, baritone sax, alto horn | E♭ | a major sixth higher | A major |
| Horn | F | a perfect fifth higher | G major |
| Trombone, euphonium, bassoon, cello, tuba | C | bass clef, lower | C major |
Charts for every note and key are on trumpet transposition, clarinet transposition, sax transposition and horn transposition, and all instruments are in the transposing instruments chart.
Pages with the key and range of every carol: Christmas songs for trumpet, Christmas songs for flute, Christmas songs for clarinet and Christmas songs for saxophone.
Yes. The melodies and words of all carols here are in the public domain: their composers and poets died more than 70 years ago or are unknown. Download, copy, share and perform them, no sign-up needed.
A major second higher than the carol sounds: C major becomes D major, F major becomes G major. The page does it for you. Choose “Trumpet” and every carol appears in the key you play, so it sounds right with piano and voices.
So it sits well. On tenor sax, a melody in the soprano range would otherwise end up in the altissimo. The page picks the octave in which each carol is comfortable on your instrument; the soprano recorder gets the melody an octave higher instead.
Here you get the melody that every instrument can play, also all together. For your group’s own arrangement, photograph the music and let neumascan transpose it for each instrument.
With “All 15 carols as PDF” you get a carol book for your instrument, each carol on its own A4 page.
Yes. Download the carol as MusicXML and open it in MuseScore, Sibelius, Dorico or Finale. There you can add harmony parts, change the key or write in chords.