Want to learn how to play the notes of Carol of the Bells on the piano? You’re in luck, we’ve designed a piano tutorial especially for this song.
Carol of the Bells is one of the most popular Christmas songs in the world. Composed in 1916 by the Ukrainian musician Mykola Leontovich, its original title is Shchedryk.
Originally, the song has nothing to do with the Christmas tradition, and this is reflected in the lyrics. The lyrics tell the story of a swallow that flies into a home to say that the family living there will have plenty in the coming year.
In the late 1930s, some choral groups began to take up the music and sing it at Christmas time. In 1940, many American artists took up the English lyrics and recorded their covers, contributing to the growing fame of the song, now called Carol of the Bells.
From the 1950s onwards, the track became inseparable from Christmas celebrations. Since then, it remains one of the most sung Christmas songs in December.
Its current fame makes it very popular with piano players. Moreover, it is a song quite easy to play on the piano. This makes it a target of choice for beginner pianists.
That’s why we wanted to write this course to learn the notes of Carol of the Bells on the piano. You will learn the notes to play with the right hand, those to play with the left hand as well as tutorial videos that show you the beats, octaves and tempo of the song.
You can also download the free piano part of Carol of the Bells as a PDF.
At the end of the article, the goal is for you to be able to easily play this famous Christmas song on the piano. Let’s go!
Bonus : you can also learn to play this song at your own pace on our interactive piano learning app La Touche Musicale.
Free download: >> >> The guide to learn 10 easy piano pieces.
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Before learning the notes of Carol of the Bells, let’s quickly go over the basics of piano and see the location of each note on a keyboard.
Look carefully at the image below to familiarize yourself with this exercise:
The name of the notes on a piano keyboard.
We can see on the picture above that the piano keyboard is divided into several parts. Each part is composed of 7 white keys, and each white key is associated with a different note.
Once you reach the 8th key, the sequence of notes starts again and the 7 notes continue in the same order. This is called an octave.
To identify the notes on the keyboard more easily, we recommend that you use the black keys above the white keys. Unlike the white keys, the black keys do not follow one another and work in groups of 2 and 3.
To identify a note, all you have to do is find your way around these groups of black keys.
For example, if we are looking for the note G, we must first look at the groups of 3 black keys. The G is located to the right of the first black key in the groups of three.
We advise you to learn the positions of the notes on the piano keyboard almost by heart. This will make it easier for you to play Carol of the Bells.
Before playing all the notes in the right hand of Carol of the Bells, we will first use what we learned in the previous section to identify the position of the first note to play on the piano keyboard.
The first note is C. So place your finger on the corresponding key:
A is the first note of the right hand in the song Carol of the Bells on piano.
Did you find the C? Perfect! Now we can play all the following notes with the right hand.
Play each of the notes in the following sequence one after the other [Note: when two notes must be played at the same time and form a chord, we have linked them with a “+” symbol] :
C – B – C – A – C – B – C – A – C – B – C – A – C – B – C – A – C – B – C – A – C – B – C – A – C – B – C – A – C – B – C – A – C – B – C – A – C – B – C – A – C – B – C – A – C – B – C – A – C – B – C – A – C – B – C – A – C – B – C – A – C – B – C – A – E – D. -E – C – E – D -E – C – E – D -E – C – E – D -E – C – A – A – A – G – F – E – E – E – D – C – D – D – D – E – D – C – B – C – A – E – F# – G# – A – B – C – D – E – D – C – E – F# – G# – A – B – C – D – E – D – C – C – B – C – A – C – B – C – A – C – B – C – A – C – B – C – A – C – B – C – A – C – B – C – A – C – B – C – A – C – B – C – A – C+E – B+D – C+E – A.
This sequence of notes corresponds to the whole melody of Carol of the Bells played with the left hand on the piano.
We advise you to repeat it over and over again to master it. Once you have mastered it, switch to the left hand.
Carol of the Bells on the piano: the notes of the right hand.
To help you play the notes with your right hand, we have prepared a tutorial video showing you the time of each note and the tempo of the song [Note: you must remain pressed on the key while the note is on it on the virtual piano] :
La Touche Musicale app waits for you to play the right note with your right hand on your piano before moving on to the next one.
As we did for the right hand, we will start here by identifying the first note to be played by the left hand.
To play the accompaniment to Carol of the Bells with your left hand, start by placing your finger on note A of the piano keyboard:
A is the first note of the left hand in the song Carol of the Bells.
Once you have found the note A, you can play all the notes of the left hand in succession. Press each of the corresponding keys on your piano:
A – G – F – E – F – E – D – A – D – E – F – E – E – F# – G# – G# – A – C – D – A – E – E – A – G – F – E – A – A.
Press all these notes in a row to play the entire left hand of Carol of the Bells on the piano.
Although the left hand, played independently of the right hand, has no catchy melody, it does accompany the right hand and add depth to your playing. If you play only with the right hand, you will only have the melody of the song and your performance will lack emotion.
As with the right hand, repeat this sequence of notes over and over again so you know it inside out.
Carol of the Bells on the piano: the notes of the left hand.
Watch the following tutorial video to familiarize yourself with the time of each note to be played with the left hand and the tempo of the music:
The La Touche Musicale app waits for you to play the correct note with your left hand on your piano before moving on to the next.
You can now play both hands of Carol of the Bells independently, that’s great!
Now we need to be able to play them at the same time to reproduce the original song.
The dissociation of the hands is not an easy exercise. It requires concentration and practice.
The human brain is not used to processing such precise information in a synchronous way.
This is why beginner pianists usually have a hard time dissociating their hands during the first months of their learning.
But don’t worry. Our goal here is for you to be able to play Carol of the Bells on the piano. So we’re going to give you some techniques and tips that will help you learn this exercise much faster.
Pianists who are just beginning to learn often have difficulty separating their hands.
This is why some teachers or music coaches have developed techniques to help us learn this exercise more efficiently.
As we did in this tutorial, start by playing the notes of the song one hand after the other. This will get your brain used to the piano fingering of each hand. It will also memorize the information more quickly.
Once you know how to play the right hand alone and the left hand alone, you will have to synchronize them.
To do this, you can break up your song or exercise into lots of short passages of no more than a few seconds. For example, if the song you are practicing is 2 minutes long, then choose the first 10 seconds of the song. Play the notes of the passage over and over with both hands very softly. When you feel more comfortable, pick up the pace to the original tempo of the song. Once you have mastered the passage, move on to the next one. Repeat the exercise in the same way and, when you have mastered this passage as well, play the two passages in a row.
This trick allows your brain to assimilate the information gradually. This way, you will learn much faster and take the time to work on your technique and fingering.
Note: At La Touche Musicale, we name this technique the “learning loop”. Noticing its effectiveness on piano learning, we decided to integrate a feature into our online piano learning app that allows you to loop any part of the song and learn it in a few hours.
Carol of the Bells on the piano: the notes of both hands.
This tutorial video shows the notes of Carol of the Bells to be played with both hands at the same time on a virtual piano keyboard.
Follow the notes press at the right time to play them. Also respect the time of each note and the general tempo of the song. Finally, this video shows you when to play the notes of each hand in order to synchronize them.
If the speed of the video is too fast, you can pause it to give yourself time to place your fingers correctly on your piano keyboard.
Note: on La Touche Musicale app, you don’t need to pause the song. The application waits for you until you play the right note.
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The La Touche Musicale app waits for you to play the right notes with both hands on your piano before moving on to the next.
Congratulations, you can now play this famous Christmas song on the piano!
We hope you enjoyed this tutorial and found it useful.
If so, you’ll certainly enjoy our other tutorials on equally popular songs
– Learn to Play the Notes of Deck the Halls on the piano
– Learn Mary Had a Little Lamb with Piano notes
– Bohemian Rhapsody : learn the notes on the piano
– Learn to Play Für Elise on the piano
– Learn to play Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas on piano
– We Wish You a Merry Christmas Piano Tutorial
– Learn to Play the notes of Rhapsody in Blue on the piano
In addition to this tutorial for learning the notes of the song, we thought you might find it useful to download the free piano score of Carol of the Bells in PDF. This way you can print it out and practice from anywhere.
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