A lullaby that rocks
Silent Night sways like a cradle, and the sheet writes that sway into its spacing. Three patterns cover almost every line:
o - po: long, short, medium. The G is held, the A slips in quickly, and G returns.d - - d: a quarter note, then the same key again as an eighth note, as on “All is calm”.- a letter followed by four dashes: the long note that ends a line, a dotted quarter, three eighth notes long.
Once those three are in your ear, the rhythm of the carol reads itself.
Where the melody goes
The first four lines are two pairs. Lines one and two are identical, around G and E. Line three jumps up to D5 (d), the high point so far, and line four answers on C5 (s) before falling to G. Lines five and six are twins again, climbing through A, C and B: p - - p s - ap. The final pair lifts to the top of the carol, F5 (g) and E5 (f), then walks home through G, E, F and D to middle C, held to close.
The range, middle C up to F5, fits comfortably under two hands on a computer keyboard: the whole sheet lies between t and g.
Playing it softly
Carols like this are usually played slowly and quietly. Try it at the slow speed first and keep the long notes full length. A held Space works as a sustain pedal and blurs the notes into each other the way a church organ or guitar accompaniment would; lift it at the start of every line so the harmony stays clean.
About the carol
Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht was composed in 1818 by Franz Xaver Gruber to words by Joseph Mohr, for two solo voices, choir and guitar, in D major. It was first printed in 1832, as the fourth of a set of four Tyrolean songs, according to the carol’s entry in IMSLP. The melody here is the one commonly sung today. Gruber’s music and Mohr’s words are both far out of copyright.
A far livelier seasonal tune, also in C major, is Jingle Bells.