Hark the Herald Angels Sing by Felix Mendelssohn

Overview

Key: G major · Chords used: 9 · Sections: 2

Form: A Section → B Section

Where these chords come from: a lead sheet of this public-domain song, contributed by a musician to the Wikifonia archive and preserved in the OpenEWLD lead-sheet collection (Simonetta et al., 2018). It describes the song as written, not any particular recording. This page shows that lead sheet as-is: the analysis below is generated directly from it by code, not written by AI. Consecutive repeats of a chord are shown once, and the piano voicings are our playable arrangement of each chord symbol, not a note-for-note transcription.

Section by section

A Section

• G – D (×2)
  I – V
• G – Bm – C
  I – iii – IV
• G – D (×2)
  I – V
• Em – G – A7 – Bm – A7 – D – G – A7 – D
  vi – I – II7 – iii – II7 – V – I – II7 – V

B Section

• G – D7 – G – D7 – G – D (×2)
  I – V7 – I – V7 – I – V
• C – E7 – Am – E7 – Am – D7 – G – D – G (×2)
  IV – VI7 – ii – VI7 – ii – V7 – I – V – I

Chord vocabulary

Harmonic highlights

• A7 acts as V/V: it resolves to D.
• E7 acts as V/ii: it resolves to Am.

Sources & accuracy

• Chords: the OpenEWLD lead-sheet collection (Simonetta et al., 2018). Community-contributed lead sheet (chord symbols over the melody) from the Wikifonia archive, MIT licence. Title and songwriter credit as written on the sheet.
• Section names: detected by code from repeated 8-, 12- and 16-bar phrases (letters such as A and B mark different phrases; a phrase that comes back keeps its letter). Lead sheets rarely print section names.
• Not verified: only one lead sheet of this song is available, so it hasn't been cross-checked.
• Rhythm and chord durations aren't shown; each step is one chord change.