Amazing Grace Notes: Letters, Numbers & Piano Guide

Amazing Grace is one of the friendliest famous melodies to learn from letter notes. It only uses five note names, never needs a black key, and moves mostly in small steps. The one surprise is where it starts: below middle C, which matters on both piano and kalimba. Below are the notes for the first verse in the key of C, in letters and in the number notes kalimba players use.

If you'd like to hear it first, play Amazing Grace in your browser. That's the sound demo for echoPi, a fidget slider in development with real clicks: each click or push plays the next note, so the tune goes at whatever pace your hand sets.

Amazing Grace notes in letters and numbers

Reading the table: letter names don't include octave numbers. In the number column, C is 1 (do), D is 2, E is 3, G is 5 and A is 6. A dot under a number means the lower octave, a dot over it the higher octave. The range runs from G3, the G just below middle C, up to G4, exactly one octave. Each row is one line of the verse.

The words of the first verse, as John Newton's hymn was printed in 1779 (quoted from Wikipedia's transcription of the original):

Amazing grace! (how sweet the sound) That sav'd a wretch like me! I once was lost, but now am found, Was blind, but now I see.

The four table rows follow those four lines. There are more notes than syllables, because some syllables stretch across two notes, so the rows aren't split syllable by syllable.

Why it's so easy: five note names

Count the different letters in the table and you get G, A, C, D and E. No F, no B. In C, those five notes form the major pentatonic scale, the same five-note set you get by playing only the black keys on a piano, just shifted onto white keys. A melody built from them has no awkward half steps, and almost any combination sounds settled.

Two more things make it forgiving:

• Lines 1, 2 and 4 start the same way. G C E C E D is the opening of three of the four lines. Learn it once and three quarters of the song is mostly done.
• C is home. C appears 11 times out of 35 notes, and E 9 times. Your hand keeps coming back to the same two keys.

Line 3, "I once was lost, but now am found", is the only line that's different. It climbs to the high G, bounces between E and G, then falls back down to the low G.

The rhythm in words

Amazing Grace is in 3/4, a slow count of three, and every line starts with a short pickup note before the first strong beat. A typical hymnal setting (the one shown in Wikipedia's article) goes like this:

1. The pickup. The first G is one beat on its own: "A-".
2. Long, then a quick pair. C is held for two beats, then E C share the third beat. That long-then-quick-pair sway is what makes it sound like Amazing Grace.
3. Long notes on the strong words. E, C and the final G of line 1 are held two beats each, landing on "grace", "sweet" and "sound".
4. Hold the last note of each line. The G at the end of line 1 rings while the next pickup comes in; the C at the very end is held for a full bar.

Line 3 is the busiest, with a lilting long-short figure on the high G and E, which is where its extra notes come from. Don't rush it. On the browser demo, tap the quick pairs close together and leave space after the long notes.

How to play Amazing Grace on piano

Everything is on white keys, and the song spans exactly one octave, from the G below middle C to the G above it.

One hand position covers most of it. Put your right thumb on the G below middle C. Then: index finger on A, middle finger on middle C (skip B, it's never used), ring finger on D, little finger on E. Line 1 now plays without moving: G (1) C (3) E (5) C (3) E (5) D (4) C (3) A (2) G (1). Line 4 is the same position.

One shift for the high G. Line 2 ends on the G above middle C, and line 3 sits around it. For those, move up: thumb on middle C, middle finger on E, little finger on the high G. Line 3 then drops back to the low G and A at the end, so return to the first position before you get there.

Easier option. If the shift bothers you, play the whole melody one octave higher, starting on the G above middle C. Leave the left hand out until the tune is solid; a single low C or G on the first beat of each bar makes a simple first accompaniment.

How to play Amazing Grace on a kalimba

The number column is written for a kalimba in C, a popular tuning. On a typical kalimba the lowest note sits in the centre and the scale climbs outwards, alternating right and left, so 1 2 3 zig-zag from the middle rather than sitting side by side (Wikipedia describes this layout).

The catch is range. The number notes start on 5̣ and use 6̣, the G and A below middle C. On a common 17-tine kalimba in C, the centre tine is middle C, so those two notes don't exist. Two fixes:

• Move everything up an octave. Read every number one octave higher: 5̣ becomes 5, 1 becomes 1̇, and so on. Line 1 becomes 5 1̇ 3̇ 1̇ 3̇ 2̇ 1̇ 6 5. The highest note you'll need is then 5̇, the G above the C an octave over the centre tine, still well inside a 17-tine range.
• Use a kalimba that goes lower. If your instrument has tines marked with a dot under 5 and 6, you can play the table exactly as written.

Because the tune never needs F or B, you could even play it on a small kalimba with only a handful of tines, as long as it has the six pitches in the table, or the same six an octave higher.

Where the words and the tune come from

The words are by John Newton, an English clergyman and former slave trader. According to Wikipedia, he wrote them to go with a New Year's Day sermon in 1773 in Olney, Buckinghamshire. They were first printed in 1779 in Olney Hymns, the collection Newton made with the poet William Cowper. The Library of Congress notes the hymn wasn't even titled "Amazing Grace" there: it was just "Hymn 41", starting at the bottom of page 53.

The melody came later and separately. Wikipedia reports that the words were sung to more than 20 different tunes until 1835, when the American composer William Walker set them to a tune called "New Britain" in his shape-note tunebook Southern Harmony. New Britain itself combines two earlier melodies, "Gallaher" and "St. Mary", first printed in Columbian Harmony in 1829. Neither tune is attributed, and Wikipedia says scholars can only speculate that they may be of British origin.

Versions you'll run into

• The tune. Wikipedia credits the publisher Edwin Othello Excell, between 1900 and 1910, with the arrangement of New Britain that became the standard in American churches; it altered some of Walker's music, which is one reason shape-note versions can sound slightly different.
• The words. The 1779 text reads "sav'd"; later printings write "saved". Some recent publications have also rewritten "that saved a wretch like me", for example as "that saved and set me free".
• Other melodies. In some regions the same words are still sung to other common-meter tunes, which works because every verse has the same 8.6.8.6 syllable pattern.

The notes on this page follow the familiar New Britain melody. To hear the whole verse at your own pace, tap through Amazing Grace note by note, or browse more easy songs with letter notes.