Jingle Bells is undoubtedly the most popular Christmas carol in the Western world! And there’s a good reason for that. It has such a catchy melody and fits so well with the Christmas spirit that you hear it everywhere around Christmas time, and whether young or old, everyone likes this tune. When it comes to learning a musical instrument, Jingle Bells is also one of the first choices during the winter season. And in this free recorder tutorial, we will show you how to play it the easy way. We will teach you how to play it with easy letter notes with finger charts, but we will also provide you with the sheet music for advanced players. But first, let’s learn a little more about the history of this song, because it wasn’t written as a Christmas carol!
History of Jingle Bells
Jingle Bells, one of the world’s most recognizable Christmas songs, was originally written for a very different holiday – Thanksgiving! Composed in 1857 by James Lord Pierpont, the song was first titled “One Horse Open Sleigh” and was meant to capture the fun and excitement of a winter sleigh ride. It became so popular that it quickly became associated with Christmas, where it has since become a seasonal classic.
Although the song makes no reference to Christmas or presents, its cheerful melody and images of snow and sleigh rides perfectly capture the festive spirit of the holiday season. Interestingly, Jingle Bells was the first song broadcast from space in 1965 by astronauts aboard NASA’s Gemini 6.
Jingle Bells Finger Chart
The Christmas song requires a lot of notes. We will play the song in the key of G major. The notes needed in this key are G, A, C’, D’, E’, F’ and G’. We will use two different G notes, a high G note and a low G note. For clarity, we’ll refer to the higher G as G’.
First, make sure you know how to play these notes correctly without looking at the fingering chart. Practice these notes first until you can play them without much difficulty.
To make it easier for you, you should practice the individual notes one by one. Once well practiced, you can move on to the next section where we play Jingle Bells with these notes. You can also check out our recorder notes chart to get a complete overview of all notes and the corresponding musical notation.
Jingle Bells Recorder letter Notes
So let’s put the notes together and start learning to play the melody. If you are not familiar with reading music or are just starting to play the recorder, you may find this quite challenging. In this case, letter notes are much easier to read because they reduce the music to a basic level. This system doesn’t give you all the details of a piece of music, such as how long to hold a certain note, but it definitely makes learning easier for beginners.
The challenge for you as a beginner will be to change between notes correctly. But this is a perfect exercise to improve your recorder playing. We also recommend that beginners start slowly. So just take the first line of the song and try to play it slowly and correctly.
Once you know the first line by heart, move on to the next line until you can play the whole song. Remember that playing slowly and without rushing greatly reduces the chance of making mistakes. Only when you can play the song slowly and correctly can you increase the speed.
Here are the lyrics with the letter notes to play it in an easy way:
Want to know how the song should sound line by line when played correctly on the recorder? Listen to the audio recording below. You can also slow down the recording.
Recorder Sheet Music for Jingle Bells
As mentioned above, sheet music is the most accurate way to put a song down on paper. But for beginners, reading music can be another big challenge besides learning the basics of the new instrument. However, if you feel ready to learn or teach music notation, Jingle Bells is a great song to learn because it doesn’t have a very complex melody and we focus on simple versions!
Guitar Chords are illustrated in guitar chords diagram. They are a simplified illustration of the guitar neck and it tells you where to put which finger on which string. Learn more about how to read guitar chords!
Here is the recorder sheet music for Jingle Bells:
Free Recorder Printables for Jingle Bells
We provide free worksheets for each song that you can use in your recorder lessons or just for yourself while practicing at home! Feel free to download and share the lyrics and sheet music in PDF format!
Interested in instruments other than the recorder? You can also find a free lesson on how to play Jingle Bells on the guitar, ukulele and piano.
