Silent night piano sheet music for beginners with letters

Difficulty : the dissociation of the two hands

Dissociating movements that are performed simultaneously is never easy. The brain is not used to this type of exercise.

It is the same when you start playing the piano. If you are a beginner, you will certainly find it difficult to play the notes with both hands at the same time.

But don’t panic! This problem is very common and can be solved with hard work.

There are also a number of techniques and tricks that can help you gain this mastery more quickly. This is what we are going to talk about right now.

Methods, tips and techniques

To learn how to dissociate your hands when you play the piano, there are techniques and tricks.

For example, you can, as we have chosen to do in this tutorial on Silent Night, start by playing the notes of the right hand and then those of the left hand. Your brain will then already have a theoretical basis to build on when you play both hands simultaneously.

Once you’ve done this exercise and are starting to play both hands, we recommend that you work in short sequences. Cut the song or exercise you are learning into several parts of a few seconds each. Practice the first part on a loop. Once you’ve mastered it, move on to the second. Once you have mastered it, play both parts in a row.

This technique allows your brain to assimilate the information more quickly. If you go too fast and play the first 30 seconds of a song in one go, you may take much longer and get discouraged.

Note: At La Touche Musicale, we call this technique the “learning loop”. Noticing the effectiveness of this technique 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 very quickly.

You can also work on your scales. Scales are exercises that work on both hand dissociation and your dexterity. In addition to the songs that you learn at the piano, we advise you to practice scales which will be very useful in your piano practice.

You have practiced hand dissociation and are now ready to play Silent Night on the piano? Congratulations! Let’s see now the notes to play with both hands through a video tutorial.

Silent Night Piano

Silent Night is a 19th century Austrian Christmas carol that is one of the most recorded and performed Christmas carols of all time. The lyrics, originally written in German were penned by Joseph Mohr whilst the timeless melody was composed by Franz Gruber. The Silent Night piano arrangements that I have written are simple, but challenging. I have also put together arrangements of Silent Night for flute, violin, clarinet and trumpet.

Silent Night Easy Piano Sheet Music

Silent night piano sheet music for beginners with letters
Silent Night Easy Piano Version

This easy piano version of Silent Night is in the key of B flat major (2 flats – B flat and E flat).
This is a challenging key for a beginner piano player and so I have kept the left hand very simple.
The melody has some challenging leaps in it and so it is worth paying particular attention to the fingering I have suggested.
The time signature is 3/4 and so there are 3 crotchet (quarter note) beats in every bar.
The tempo marking is Adagio meaning Slowly – it is very important not to rush the tempo of Silent Night – the lyrics clearly suggest that the carol should be played calmly and serenely.

Intermediate Arrangement

Silent night piano sheet music for beginners with letters
Silent Night Intermediate Piano

The intermediate arrangement focuses on using consecutive 3rds in the right hand part.
This is a great skill to develop in your piano playing as you will find that lots of pieces use consecutive 3rds and they sound great!
It may take a bit of practice at first, but once your fingers get used to the movement you will find that it is a really rewarding piano technique to learn.

Silent Night Clarinet and Trumpet Version

Here is an arrangement that can be used for either clarinet or trumpet in B flat:

Silent night piano sheet music for beginners with letters

Silent night piano sheet music for beginners with letters
Silent Night Clarinet

Silent Night Flute and Violin Sheet Music

This version of Silent Night is for flute or violin:

Silent night piano sheet music for beginners with letters

Silent night piano sheet music for beginners with letters
Silent Night Flute

Lyrics

Here are the full lyrics to Silent Night:

Verse 1
Silent night, holy night,
All is calm, all is bright,
Round yon virgin mother and child,
Holy infant so gentle and mild,
Sleep in heavenly peace,
Sleep in heavenly peace.

Verse 2
Silent night, holy night,
Shepherds quake at the sight,
Glories stream from heaven afar,
Heavenly hosts sing Al-le-lu-ia!
Christ the Saviour is born!
Christ the Saviour is born!

Verse 3
Silent night, holy night
Son of God, love’s pure light
Radiant beams from Thy holy face
With the dawn of redeeming grace
Jesus, Lord at Thy birth
Jesus, Lord at Thy birth

About The Author

Ben Dunnett LRSM is the founder of Music Theory Academy. He is a music teacher, examiner, composer and pianist with over twenty years experience in music education. Read More

What are the piano notes for Silent Night?

C – C – B – A – G – G – C – F – F – C – F – F – C – B – A – G – G – C – C – G – D – C. If you play all these notes in a row on the keyboard, you will have the whole left hand of Silent Night on the piano, accompanying the right hand and giving depth to the melody of the song.