Ukrainian Bell Carol Free Sheet Music for Beginning Piano

The Ukrainian Bell Carol (also called Carol of the Bells, or Hark How the Bells) is incredibly popular and beautiful. This free sheet music will encourage your beginning piano students to make it sparkle with energy.

Many first-year students can learn this piece, as long as they have the coordination to master the four-note figure which the right hand repeats over and over again. ("TAH, tee-tee Tah, TAH, tee-tee Tah.")

When introducing it, I always give them just the right hand motif the first week, because it is tricky! A great many of them come back the next week playing four equal quarter notes (sounding like the beginning of the "Dies irae," not "Hark, how the bells!"), and wondering why all the spark seems to have gone out of the song.

I have written an easier version of the Carol of the Bells more suitable for real beginners, using the Middle C notes with which they should be familiar. Though not having the flash and sparkle of this longer version, the beauty of the music still comes through and seems to satisfy kids at the beginning level, and they work at it happily.

Download the Ukrainian Bell Carol free Christmas sheet music

Here's another Youtube video of the Ukrainian Bell Carol -- this one moves fast!

Hark How the Bells is easily learned by rote; I'm not saying not to have them read the notes! But your kids will be able to PLAY this piece long before they can READ it, and long before they meet treble C,D and E in their Faber Piano Adventure books, not to mention f# and g#, which the song uses on page 2.

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