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Cwritten C4 · sounds B♭3open · 2nd partial
SongsGood King Wenceslas
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The spring carol “Tempus adest floridum”, from Piae Cantiones, 1582. Public domain.

31 notes · F♯3–C6 written · sounds E3–B♭5 · 31 notes · A B♭ trumpet: a mostly cylindrical bore, the bright one.

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 middle C, the open low C, and they climb a semitone at a time to the high C.

TrumpetFree · printable · plays in your browser

Good King Wenceslas — Trumpet Notes

Good King Wenceslas, written out for the trumpet as written notes with the valves for each one and set up above on the Trumpet. Press Play to hear it, Practice to learn it one note at a time — the trumpet waits for you — or Play along to keep time with it.

  • Notes53, 8 pitches
  • RangeG4–G5
  • Key hereC major
  • Tempo120 bpm · about 34 s
  • LevelEasy

Can a trumpet 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.

  • Trumpet✓ Plays as writtenIn C major, G4–G5 · loaded above
  • Cornet✓ Plays as writtenIn C major, G4–G5 · load it
  • Flugelhorn✓ Plays as writtenIn C major, G4–G5 · load it

The notes here are written pitch, which is what a trumpet player reads. On the Trumpet this sounds in B♭ major.

Good King Wenceslas: trumpet notes

The large line is the written note; the small line under it is the valves to press — 0 is none. 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 — trumpet notes (Trumpet) · tonalics.com

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.

  • G0×7
  • A1-2×7
  • B2×4
  • C0×21
  • D1×6
  • E0×3
  • F1×3
  • G0×2

What to expect on a trumpet

  • It runs from G4 to G5, an octave, using 8 different notes. That leaves 13 semitones unused below and 5 above.
  • 85% of its moves are a step or a repeated note. The widest is a fifth, C5 to G5, at note 27.
  • It uses 4 valve combinations (open, 1, 1-2 and 2), and 33 of its 53 notes are played open.
  • The lips move across 4 partials of the harmonic series (3, 4, 5, 6).

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 trumpet

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

Playing it on a real trumpet?

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

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