Greensleeves sheet music (easy)

Traditional English (16th century), Level 3 · Beginner, 0:30

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Greensleeves (Easy), keyboard staff, page 1 of 2Greensleeves (Easy)Traditional English (16th century). Regular keyboard staff. Print at 100%, not fit-to-page.CCDDEFFGGAABBold red line: C4 · Solid line: other Cs, D F G A · Dotted grey line: E | F and B | CC3C568ACDEFEDBGABAAGEC3C53CAAG♯ABEACDEFEAAEAAAC3C56DBGABCBAG♯F♯G♯AAGEAAAAC3C59GGF♯EDBGABCAAG♯AEEGEAASource: Site-owned easy edition. Melody: Greensleeves, 16th century English traditional, public domain, taken from The Open Hymnal Project (http://openhymnal.org/Abc/What_Child_Is_This-Greensleeves.abc). Left handwritten for this site.Greensleeves (Easy) · Page 1 of 2
Greensleeves (Easy), keyboard staff, page 2 of 2C3C512BGEGGF♯EDBGABEAEEGEC3C515CBAG♯F♯G♯AAAEAASource: Site-owned easy edition. Melody: Greensleeves, 16th century English traditional, public domain, taken from The Open Hymnal Project (http://openhymnal.org/Abc/What_Child_Is_This-Greensleeves.abc). Left handwritten for this site.Greensleeves (Easy) · Page 2 of 2
Painting of a red-haired woman in a green dress with flowers
My Lady Greensleeves. Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1863, Harvard Art Museums. Wikimedia Commons, Public domain.

Key facts

Level
Level 3 · Beginner. Estimated from the notes (0 of 8 on our difficulty score)
Time signature
6/8
Key signature
No sharps or flats
Length
17 bars, 2 pages
Playing time
0:30
Notes
102
Range
A2 to G5

Source and licence

Licence of the source: Public domain melody (Open Hymnal per-file statement).

Source: Site-owned easy edition. Melody: Greensleeves, 16th century English traditional, public domain, taken from The Open Hymnal Project. Left hand written for this site.

Source: The Open Hymnal Project.

Playback sounds: Salamander Grand Piano by Alexander Holm (CC BY 3.0); Upright Piano KW by Gonzalo and Roberto of FreePats (CC0 1.0); Fluid R3 GM by Frank Wen and contributors (CC BY 3.0). Full sound credits.

How to play Greensleeves (Easy)

A tune in a lilting six, with a melody that changes some of its notes on the way down. Catching those changes is the whole quest.

Where your hands go

Right hand: the pickup is A4. The tune then rises from C5 to F5. Thumb on A4 and the hand reaches up to F5 with the little finger.

Left hand: two long notes a bar, like A2 and A2, or G3 and E3.

The time is 6/8: six eighth notes a bar, felt as two beats of three, "ONE two three FOUR five six".

The tricky bars

Bars 2–3
G4 is a plain G in bar 2 (D5, B4, G4, A4, B4) but G♯4 in bar 3 (C5, A4, A4, G♯4, A4).
Bar 7
C5, B4, A4, G♯4, F♯4, G♯4: two black keys in one run.
Bar 9
The second half starts high on G5, then G5, F♯5, E5. Notice F♯5 here, where bar 1 had a plain F5.
Bars 15–16
The run from bar 7 returns, then the tune ends on A4.

Your practice plan

  1. Clap and count bars 1 and 2 in 6/8: "ONE two three FOUR five six".
  2. Right hand alone, bars 0 to 8.
  3. Right hand alone, bars 9 to 16.
  4. Add the left hand, two notes a bar.
  5. Play the whole tune with Listen on.

Watch out for

  • Mixing up G and G♯. Bars 2, 6, 10 and 14 use G; bars 3, 7, 11 and 15 use G♯.
  • Mixing up F and F♯. Bars 1 and 5 use F5; bars 9 and 13 use F♯5, and bars 7 and 15 use F♯4.
  • Counting 6/8 as six even beats instead of two swinging groups of three.

Power-up: press Loop, tap the first and last of the tricky bars, and they repeat until they feel easy. Hands in Options lets you practise one hand at a time. New to the notation? Start with how to read keyboard staff, then how to practise piano.