Silent Night sheet music for easy piano

The Silent Night sheet music above is in C major, with the letter name under every note; the Letter notes tab lists the same notes as text. The carol uses only white keys, from middle C up to the F more than an octave above it, and it moves gently, mostly by step. Its lilting rhythm, a long note, a short one, then a note on the beat, runs through almost every line, so once the first bar feels right, much of the rest follows.

About Silent Night

Silent Night began as "Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht", a German carol with words by Joseph Mohr and music by Franz Xaver Gruber. It was composed in 1818 in Oberndorf, a small town near Salzburg in Austria, where Mohr was the assistant priest and Gruber a schoolteacher and organist. It was first sung there on Christmas Eve that year, with a guitar accompaniment.

The English words most people sing today come from a translation made in 1859 by John Freeman Young, an American clergyman. As the carol traveled, its tune changed a little too: the melody most English-speaking singers know differs slightly from Gruber's original in a couple of places. This page uses that common English-language version.

How to play Silent Night

The melody covers more than an octave, so plan on moving your right hand a few times. Practice waits for you at every key, which makes it a good place to work out each move.

• Opening. Put your thumb on E, the E just above middle C, so finger 3 rests on G and finger 4 on A. The first line is then fingers 3 4 3 1, twice.
• The leap. The second line jumps from E up to D, almost an octave higher. Move your whole hand up so your thumb is on G and your little finger on D; the line then fits under your fingers (5 5 3, then 4 4 1).
• The middle. The third and fourth lines are the same. Each starts on A with your thumb on G, then returns to the opening pattern, so move back to the E position for its last four notes.
• The high point. The fifth line climbs to F, the highest note in the song. Put your thumb on B so your little finger can reach F; the E that follows is finger 4.
• The ending. The last line comes down to middle C, the final note, which lasts a full bar.

Counting in 3/4

Silent Night is in 3/4, three beats to a bar. The opening uses a dotted rhythm: G lasts a beat and a half, A is a quick half beat, and the next G takes beat 3. Count "1 2-and 3": play G on 1 and hold it through 2, play A on the "and", and G on 3. The E after it lasts a whole bar, three counts.

The same long-short pattern comes back in every line except the second, so it is worth getting it smooth at the start.

Add a simple left-hand part

The bass staff adds one note per bar: C3, F3 or G3, held for all three beats. Put your left little finger on C3, finger 2 on F3 and thumb on G3. This leaves the hand in one position. The first four bars stay on C3, and the next two move to G3 under the high D and B in the melody.

Choose Left hand to hear or practice the accompaniment, then Both hands when the notes are familiar. Start each bass note with the first melody note of its bar and keep holding it while the right hand plays the shorter notes. Try Listen at 50% to hear those two rhythms together. Practice waits at each new attack; it does not test the length of your held bass note. The Print button prints both staves, and the printable section also offers the melody-only version.

Practice tips

• Learn the repeats once. The two halves of the first line are the same, and so are the third and fourth lines, so there is less to learn than it looks.
• Practice the leap on its own. Play E, then jump to the high D, a few times on the keyboard until your hand lands there without searching.
• Keep it calm. Silent Night is a quiet carol; it sounds best slow and even, with every long note given its full count before you move on.
• Add sustain on the full piano. The main piano has a sustain pedal on the space bar and can record what you play, so you can listen back to your own Silent Night.

For another carol, try Jingle Bells; for another gentle tune in 3/4, try Brahms' Lullaby.

Printable sheet music

Here is the two-hand beginner arrangement, with the letter name under every note. Open the image to print or save it. The Print sheet music button above the keyboard lays the score out across paper pages. You can also open the melody-only sheet.