Silent Night Chords for Guitar, Piano and Ukulele

Silent Night needs three chords. On guitar they're G, C and D7. On piano and ukulele they're C, F and G7. Below are the chords over the words for all three verses, the piano notes for the tune, the same three chords in every common key, and a way to pick a key the whole room can sing.

The guitar chart is in G, because G, C and D7 are all open chords, with no barre. The piano and ukulele versions are in C, where the tune uses only white keys. Whichever you play, the chords change in the same places, so a guitarist and a pianist can play from either chart together.

What chords are in Silent Night?

Silent Night uses three chords: the 1, 4 and 5 chords of its key. In G they're G, C and D7, and in C they're C, F and G7. The 5 chord is played as a seventh chord (D7 or G7), as in the hymnal harmony, which pulls more strongly back to the home chord at the end of each line.

The home chord carries most of the song. It sounds under "Silent night, holy night," comes back on "all is bright," and alternates with the 4 chord through the middle lines ("Round yon virgin" and "Holy infant"). The 5 chord comes under "All is calm" and the first "Sleep in heavenly," and the last line packs both into one bar: home chord on "Sleep in" and the 5 chord on "heavenly," before the final "peace" lands home.

Find the chord in the guitar column and play the one beside it on piano or ukulele. Every chart on this page works this way.

Silent Night lyrics and chords

These are John Freeman Young's English words, the translation most often sung today, with the Silent Night chords in G. Each chord sits on the syllable where it changes and rings until the next one, and all three verses use the same twelve bars and the same chord changes.

Young translated three of Joseph Mohr's six German verses, and his three are the ones most often sung in English.

How do you play Silent Night on guitar?

The Silent Night guitar chords are three open chords in the key of G: G (320003), C (x32010) and D7 (xx0212), counting strings from the low E. Count two slow beats per bar, because it's in 6/8, and strum down once on each beat, or pick the bass note on beat 1 and let the chord ring.

Franz Xaver Gruber wrote the tune in 6/8, six quick beats grouped in two threes, and you'll also see it printed in 3/4, either as the same twelve bars or with the note values doubled, so each 6/8 bar becomes two bars of three. Count it as two slow pulses per 6/8 bar. A simple fingerpicking pattern for 6/8 is your thumb on the bass string on beat 1, then the G and B strings on beats 2 and 3, and the same again for beats 4 to 6. If you strum, use the flesh of your thumb and brush down.

D7 is the one shape some beginners need to learn for this song, and it's worth learning instead of plain D. Its C note (first fret, B string) steps down to the open B string in the G chord as the line comes home. To play in a higher key with the same shapes, put a capo on: capo 2 gives A, capo 3 gives B flat. The guitar capo chart has every fret.

What are the piano notes for Silent Night?

The Silent Night piano notes in the key of C are all white keys. The tune starts on the G above middle C and ends on middle C. Play the chords C, F and G7 in the left hand, one chord per bar (two in the second-to-last bar), holding each until the next.

The "All is calm" line jumps up to the D just over an octave above middle C, and the first "Sleep in heavenly" climbs to the F above that, the top note of the song. The last line walks all the way down to middle C. Some syllables carry two notes, so when the letters outnumber the syllables, the extra note belongs to the syllable before it ("peace" is C rising to E).

For the left hand, start with the root alone (C, F or G) on beat 1 of each bar. Once that's steady, play the full chord. G7 is G, B, D and F. To keep your hand still, play it as B, F and G, which sits right next to the C chord's C, E and G.

What are the ukulele chords for Silent Night?

Play it in C with C (0003), F (2010) and G7 (0212), where the numbers are frets on the G, C, E and A strings in that order. C takes one finger, F two and G7 three, and the song changes chord no more than twice a line.

The ukulele sits in the same key as the piano chart, so a ukulele and a piano can play together from the piano chords. Use the guitar chart's pattern: two strums per bar, one on each of the two big 6/8 beats. If C is too high for the people singing, the same song in G uses G (0232), C (0003) and D7 (2223), which matches the guitar chart above, so a guitar and ukulele can share it. In F, the chords are F (2010), B flat (3211) and C7 (0001). For more songs on the same three chords, see lullabies on guitar and piano.

Silent Night chords in every key

Silent Night works in any major key with the same three chords, the 1, 4 and 5 of that key. The tune's lowest note is the key note and its highest is the fourth note of the scale an octave above it, so pick the key by those two notes, then read the chords across.

The high note is an octave and a fourth above the low one. Men singing the tune sing it an octave lower than written.

In Nashville numbers, one verse reads 1, 1, 5, 1, 4, 1, 4, 1, 5, 1, then 1 and 5 in the same bar, then 1, with the 5 played as a seventh chord. That chart works in every key in the table. The Nashville Number System post explains how to read and write one.

What key should a group sing Silent Night in?

For a mixed group, start in A or B flat. Those put the top note, on "Sleep in heavenly," at the D or E flat just above high C (the C an octave over middle C), and the last note at the A or B flat just below middle C. If the top note strains, drop a key; if the final "peace" disappears, raise one.

An octave and a fourth is a lot of range to ask of a room, and Silent Night uses both ends: the top note comes on the first "heavenly," and the bottom note is the very last one. A key that suits the high note can sink the last line into a mumble.

Sing the first "Sleep in heavenly peace" before you commit, since it holds the top note. In G, the tune runs from the G below middle C up to high C (G3 to C5). In C, it runs from middle C up to the F above high C.

If you're the one leading, find your own range first: the free vocal range test finds your lowest and highest notes and suggests the keys that fit them, with guitar capo frets.

Who wrote Silent Night?

Joseph Mohr, an assistant priest, wrote the words in 1816. Franz Xaver Gruber, a schoolteacher and organist, wrote the music on December 24, 1818, and the two sang it for the first time that night at St. Nicholas church in Oberndorf, near Salzburg in Austria.

According to Gruber's own account, written in 1854 and quoted by the Silent Night Association, Mohr gave him the poem that day and asked for a melody "for 2 solo voices together with choir and for accompaniment by guitar." Mohr sang the tenor part and played the guitar, and Gruber sang the bass. Nobody knows for sure why it was written for guitar instead of organ; the Silent Night Museum says it is assumed the church's old organ was unplayable or barely playable.

Gruber wrote it in D major and in 6/8 time, according to the museum, and in D the three chords are D, G and A7. The English words most often sung came later: John Freeman Young, an American Episcopal priest who later became bishop of Florida, published his translation of three of the six verses in New York in 1859. Mohr died in 1848, Gruber in 1863 and Young in 1885, and the words and tune are in the public domain. Newer English translations may not be.

How do you put Silent Night into Song Cage?

Song Cage shows a song as chords over the words, like a printed chord sheet, and moves the whole song to a new key in one step. Type the words into a song in Sheet view, put the three chords on, then pick the key your group sings in, and every chord moves with it.

To change key, pick a new one from the key chip in the toolbar and choose Move song, and every chord moves with it: G, C and D7 become A, D and E7 for a group that wants A. Relabel only is the other choice, for when the chords are right and only the key name is wrong. The changing keys chapter covers both. View > Nashville Numbers shows 1, 4 and 5 in place of the letter names, and clicking a chord shows its guitar shape or piano keys, with a capo if you set one.

To hear the words on the tune, add the melody: sing it into Song Cage and use Detect melody, or enter the notes yourself. The Singer voice then sings each syllable on its note. It sounds like an 80s talking computer played off an old cassette, rough but clear enough to check how the words sit. For another carol, Jingle Bells adds two chords to the same three. And if Silent Night has you wanting to write your own carol, how to write a Christmas song covers the chords that sound like Christmas.

Play Silent Night in your key

Put the chords over the words in Song Cage, move the song to the key your group sings in, and see every chord as a guitar shape or as piano keys.

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