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SongsGood King Wenceslas
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The spring carol “Tempus adest floridum”, from Piae Cantiones, 1582. Public domain.

6 strings · E2–E5 · A steel-string acoustic, played with a pick — the guitar most people are handed first.

Tap a string, or tap a chord and drag across them to strum. On a keyboard the letters on the strings are the ones to press — Q to Y are the six strings, high E first; 1 to 7 hold the chords of the key, Space strums, and 0 lets go.

GuitarFree · printable · plays in your browser

Good King Wenceslas — Guitar Tab

Good King Wenceslas, written out for the guitar as easy melody tab with the string and fret for every note and set up above on the Acoustic. Press Play to hear it, Practice to learn it one note at a time — the guitar waits for you — or Play along to keep time with it.

  • Notes53, 8 pitches
  • RangeD4–D5
  • Key hereG major
  • Tempo120 bpm · about 34 s
  • LevelEasy

Can a guitar play Good King Wenceslas?

Yes — every one on this page plays it. The check is made note by note against what each one can actually sound. Where the tune does not fit as the library writes it, another key or octave is tried, and the table says which; where nothing fits, it names the notes that are missing.

  • Acoustic✓ Plays as writtenIn G major, D4–D5 · loaded above
  • Classical✓ Plays as writtenIn G major, D4–D5 · load it

Good King Wenceslas: guitar tab

The large line is the fret — 0 is the open string; the small line under it is the string it is on. A dash holds the note another beat, an underline is half a beat, and a dot beside a note makes it half as long again. Each line is one phrase.

▶ Play it above

Good King Wenceslas — guitar tab (Acoustic) · tonalics.com

Good King Wenceslas guitar tab as text

The same notes as tablature: one line per string, the thin high E on top, and each number the fret to press on that line — 0 is the open string. Read it left to right, one note at a time.

e|-3-3-3-5-|-3-3----|-0---0-2-|-3--3--|-3-3-3-5-|
B|---------|-----3--|---3-----|-------|---------|
G|---------|--------|---------|-------|---------|
D|---------|--------|---------|-------|---------|
A|---------|--------|---------|-------|---------|
E|---------|--------|---------|-------|---------|

e|-3-3----|-0---0-2-|-3--3--|-10-8-7-5-|-7-5-3--|
B|-----3--|---3-----|-------|----------|--------|
G|--------|---------|-------|----------|--------|
D|--------|---------|-------|----------|--------|
A|--------|---------|-------|----------|--------|
E|--------|---------|-------|----------|--------|

e|-0---0-2-|-3--3--|-----0-2-|-3-3-5--|-10-8-7-5-|
B|---3-----|-------|-3-3-----|--------|----------|
G|---------|-------|---------|--------|----------|
D|---------|-------|---------|--------|----------|
A|---------|-------|---------|--------|----------|
E|---------|-------|---------|--------|----------|

e|-3--8--|-3---|
B|-------|-----|
G|-------|-----|
D|-------|-----|
A|-------|-----|
E|-------|-----|

Are there chords for it?

Not on this page. The chords here are chosen by rule — the three chords of the key — and they are only offered where that rule can be checked against a published harmonisation and agrees with it on most bars. For Good King Wenceslas it matched the chords printed in Paul Hardy’s Xmas Tunebook, 2019 (2024) on 13 of 19 bars and half bars: the harmony moves through more chords than three, and strumming only those would sound wrong under it. The tab above is the whole tune.

The 8 notes it uses

Lowest to highest, with how many times each is played. Learn these 8 and you can play the whole tune.

  • 3B×7
  • 0High E×7
  • 2High E×4
  • 3High E×21
  • 5High E×6
  • 7High E×3
  • 8High E×3
  • 10High E×2

What to expect on a guitar

  • It runs from D4 to D5, an octave, using 8 different notes. That leaves 22 semitones unused below and 2 above.
  • 85% of its moves are a step or a repeated note. The widest is a fifth, G4 to D5, at note 27.
  • The highest note is at fret 10, so the hand has to leave first position for it.
  • It is played on 2 strings (B and High E), and 7 notes are an open string.
  • The picking hand changes string 12 times.

About the tune

The tune is a 13th-century spring carol, “Tempus adest floridum”, printed in the Finnish songbook Piae Cantiones in 1582. In 1853 the English hymn writer John Mason Neale wrote new words for it about the Bohemian duke Wenceslas, and a song about flowers became a song about snow.

The spring carol “Tempus adest floridum”, from Piae Cantiones, 1582. Public domain. The notes follow Douglas D. Anderson, The Hymns and Carols of Christmas (sequence released to the public domain), cross-checked against 2 other transcriptions. More about Good King Wenceslas →

Good King Wenceslas on other instruments

The same melody, in each instrument’s own notation. It is not offered for the guzheng, handpan or ocarina, which do not have the notes.

More songs for the guitar

All 36 guitar songs · Christmas songs for guitar · The online guitar on its own

Playing it on a real guitar?

If it sounds wrong, check the instrument before the notes. The guitar tuner listens through your microphone and names what each note is actually sounding.

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