- Rangeoctave
- Notes52, 8 different
- ScaleMajor, no accidentals
- Time3/4
- Length hereabout 19 s
- Source editionG major
About We Wish You a Merry Christmas
An English carol from the West Country, sung by wassailers going door to door at Christmas and asking for something in return. Nobody knows who wrote it or when; it reached most of the world through a 1935 choral arrangement by the Bristol conductor Arthur Warrell, but the tune itself is traditional.
It is in three time and built from one short figure stepped up the scale three times, each time a note higher, before the refrain.
Play We Wish You a Merry Christmas on your instrument
24 of the 27 playable instruments here have every note it needs. 24 play it where the library writes it; the rest move it to another key or octave, and each page says which. Every page has the instrument itself, with the song loaded, above the notes.
- Kalimba tabs
- Piano letter notes
- Mbira tabs
- Oud notes
- Violin notes
- Cello notes
- Erhu notes
- Dulcimer tab
- Xylophone letter notes
- Marimba letter notes
- Glockenspiel letter notes
- Steel Drum letter notes
- Harmonica tabs
- Trumpet notes
- Clarinet notes
- Saxophone notes
- Flute notes
- Recorder notes
- Tuba notes
- Euphonium notes
- Trombone notes
- Accordion letter notes
- Harp letter notes
- Lyre tabs
Instruments that cannot play it
- Guzheng — it would need C♯5, G5, which it does not have in any size or key here.
- Handpan — it would need G3, B3, which it does not have in any size or key here.
- Ocarina — it would need G5, which it does not have in any size or key here.
We Wish You a Merry Christmas letter notes
Written in C major, from G4 to G5, with each note’s number in the scale under it — the form that transfers to any instrument. A dash holds a note another beat, an underline is half a beat, and each line is one phrase.
We Wish You a Merry Christmas — letter notes · tonalics.com
Where these notes come from
Traditional English carol from the West Country. Public domain. Verse and refrain.
The melody was not written down from memory. It is derived from a published transcription and compared, note for note, with independent ones:
- Followed: Sudbury Ancient Fyfe & Drum Companie carol book, transcribed by John Chambers
- Checked against: Paul Hardy’s Xmas Tunebook, 2019 (2024) — 2 of 53 notes differ, as variants of a traditional tune do
- Checked against: John Chambers’ English Christmas tunes — 5 of 52 notes differ, as variants of a traditional tune do
Verse and refrain. Three transcriptions, each differing from the others by a note or two in the second bar or the refrain; the tab follows the fife book, which agrees with one of the others at every point.