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left handright handthumb · behindT½123456½7½bellleft handright handthumb · behindT½123456½7½bell
C4sounds C5Thumb on

Baroque (English): F is a fork. On the recorder, hole 5 is bigger than hole 4.

SongsDeck the Halls
Play a different song (34)

2 more songs need notes this instrument does not have. Changing the size or key brings some of them into reach.

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Welsh traditional air “Nos Galan”, in print by the 1790s. Public domain.

27 notes · C4–D6 written · sounds C5–D7 · 27 notes · The descant: the recorder in every school bag. In C, and it sounds an octave above its written part.

Tap a note, or slide along them to slur from note to note in one breath. On a keyboard the letters on the notes are the ones to press — Q is the bottom note and they climb a semitone at a time.

RecorderFree · printable · plays in your browser

Deck the Halls — Recorder Notes

Deck the Halls, written out for the recorder as letter notes with the fingering drawn under each one and set up above on the Soprano. Press Play to hear it, Practice to learn it one note at a time — the recorder waits for you — or Play along to keep time with it.

  • Notes68, 9 pitches
  • RangeB4–C6
  • Key hereC major
  • Tempo132 bpm · about 29 s
  • LevelIntermediate

Can a recorder play Deck the Halls?

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.

  • Soprano✓ Plays as writtenIn C major, B4–C6 · loaded above
  • Alto↕ Plays, movedPlayed an octave lower: C major, B4–C6 · load it
  • Tenor✓ Plays as writtenIn C major, B4–C6 · load it

Deck the Halls: recorder notes

The large line is the note, and the drawing is its fingering — a filled hole or key is one that is down. 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

Deck the Halls — recorder notes (Soprano) · tonalics.com

The 9 notes it uses

Lowest to highest, with how many times each is played. Learn these 9 and you can play the whole tune.

  • BB4×2
  • CC5×11
  • DD5×16
  • EE5×14
  • FF5×9
  • GG5×7
  • AA5×6
  • BB5×2
  • CC6×1

What to expect on a recorder

  • It runs from B4 to C6, an octave and a semitone, using 9 different notes. That leaves 11 semitones unused below and 2 above.
  • 87% of its moves are a step or a repeated note. The widest is a major sixth, C5 to A5, at note 60.
  • E5, F5, G5, A5, B5 and C6 need the pinched thumb, the half-covered thumb hole that gives the upper octave.

About the tune

The tune is the Welsh winter air “Nos Galan” — New Year’s Eve — a dance melody that was sung with improvised verses and a harp answering each line. It was in print by the 1790s, and the English Christmas words were added in 1862.

Welsh traditional air “Nos Galan”, in print by the 1790s. Public domain. The notes follow Paul Hardy’s Xmas Tunebook, 2019 (2024), cross-checked against 2 other transcriptions. More about Deck the Halls →

Deck the Halls on other instruments

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

More songs for the recorder

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

Playing it on a real recorder?

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

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