Free lead sheets are an excellent way to not only stretch your music budget and your students' repertoire, but also to stretch their musical skills. Lead sheets require an understanding of chords!
What's so useful about a lead sheet?
A lovely Scottish poem and song which works well with guitar or piano.
Using their understanding of chords and chording patterns, music students will learn how to take a simple melody and make their own arrangement.
A pretty lullaby, useful for learning different kinds of strums and chord patterns, piano and guitar.
Chord practice! And chord relationships!
A pretty melody with easy chords. The lyrics are beautiful - like poetry!
An unusual Christmas carol, set in a minor key.
Piano students in particular may start with very simple melodies and chords.
Eventually, they will be able to employ flowing or powerfully rhythmic left hand parts, and add harmony in the right hand.
The wonderful song with words by a former slave trader, turned repentant.
Besides doing away with the complication of reading notes for two hands at once, the use of a lead sheet lets kids experiment with different styles.
"My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing."
With melody in bass clef, treble clef, guitar tablature, and viola clef too.
So. what IS a lead sheet?
Whether for guitar or piano, music lead sheets are simply the melody of a song, with chord symbols added above the notes.
The right hand (of a piano player) plays the melody while the left hand plays a chord in the left hand.
For a guitar player, usually the guitarist sings the melody and strums or picks the notes of the chord.
"O beautiful for spacious skies" - this song is frequently used as a test for singing auditions, in high schools in the United States.
Lead sheets are easier to read!
And for some students, much less intimidating.
An energetic song for the Navy!
Check out all the free lead sheets (many of them will also be found on the Free Vocal Sheet Music, and Beginner Piano Music, and Beginner Guitar pages) and you will see that the majority of them are just a few lines of melody in the treble staff.
The lovely Christmas carol with the "Glo-o-o-o-ri-a!" section.
Use lead sheets to make progressively harder arrangements.
This is a fun song! And your students likely know it already.
Play it for them and see if they don't start to sing along with you!
A great fiddle & guitar song.
In the key of C (shown here) and also the key of G.
With a few of my free lead sheets, I have left a blank bass staff for piano players.
That way, sample chord patterns for the left hand can be written out in the empty measures, to give students ideas, or to jog their memory when they get home from their lesson.
"Over hill, over dale, we will hit the dusty trail"!
A fun, energetic song.
A pretty old-fashioned song from Wales - "Down yonder green valley. "
You will sometimes hear this song in movies about bygone days, such as "Pride and Prejudice."
The tune is also used as a hymn melody: "Let All Things Now Living."
Some of the leads have guitar tabs for the melody as well.
Lead sheets in multiple keys! Several versions of leads - with simpler chords, with extra chords, and also in bass clef.
The lyrics are Latin, but alternate lyrics in English are offered as well. ("Father Almighty")
Further down the page, see my performance suggestions if you need ideas for how to use my free lead sheets.
Another pretty Christmas song, this one about Baby Jesus.
Hello! First of all, I love your site!
I wanted to ask you about lead sheets. I learned piano when I was young for few years, but only the classics. Now they're a bit difficult for me, and I want to play easier and more enjoyable pieces.
I saw an infomercial before mentioning lead sheets, how it makes playing piano easier, and I want to ask you, how do I use it? I'm really bad at chords, does that mean I need to know all my chords before playing a lead sheet music?
A beautiful and quite old hymn
You are correct that you need to understand chords to make use of lead sheets. But you can start with the basics & go on from there.
Even if you don't understand how to make chords yet, you can still get a decent, though plain, accompaniment by just using the chord symbol itself as your left hand note. Is the chord "C?" Then press a "C" with your left hand. As I tell my students, you will have the sound of a bass guitarist.
There is instruction on this page, Free Lead Sheets, regarding chord construction and use.
Also, my piano pages " Mary Had a Little Lamb , " and " Twinkle ", and " Water is Wide " all have information about chord patterns and uses. Those are EASY BEGINNER pages, but very useful if you are unfamiliar with chords!
Also, take a peek at https://www.music-for-music-teachers.com/printable-piano-chord-chart.html - this page is a graphic showing what the most common chords (major & minor chords) look like.
This minor melody is unforgettable.
Some of the words are risque, so I omitted them - sorry!
This is a beginner arrangement for fiddle & guitar of this bluegrass favorite.
Very easy, with lots of repetition.
This is the song I use to get kids started flatpicking guitar.
Why use lead sheets in your studio?
It's good to shake up your music lessons with activity changes!
This is a great bluegrass tune you may never have heard before!
A melody without words that was popularized by the group Celtic Woman, this tune lends itself to "swoops" of sound.
Very dramatic, and fun!
Same as the Army Song, shown above!
I suggest setting aside a portion of each music lesson for a rotation of activities, different every week.
An older song that has a definite American feeling
Along with games that stretch and reinforce understanding of music theory, give kids lead sheets (and if you can, free lead sheets such as I have here!).
This fun song with silly lyrics can be simplified to just 5 not es.
Kids like this song.
Several different versions here.
Starting very simply, students will gradually hone their arranging skills and feel "cut loose" from the written page.
Several solos and duets on this page.
The G7 chord in this popular old music is a good reason to have your students study it.
This is a sweet love song, with a surprisingly pretty melody.
Also find on this page a piano version, and a vocal duet
Especially for pianists, this is an entirely different way to make music, and will gradually lead to playing by ear (which I personally believe every adept musician ought to be able to do).
Lead sheets in F and G - and sheets for guitar and piano as well.
A traditional Gaelic tune, but with newer English lyrics.
This beautiful hymn from an earlier time is known as the Beach Spring melody, from The Sacred Harp tradition.
This an excellent melody with an old-fashioned American hymn sound, nearly but not quite pentatonic.
What KINDS of lead sheets?
In addition to using older, public domain songs, one kind of lead sheet I've had some success with among my students is contemporary Christian lead sheets such as "Be Unto Your Name," "Shout to the Lord," "Give Thanks," etc.
I Will Arise and Go to Jesus, from Southe rn Harmony.
This hymn has the same words as the previous one, plus a chorus with additional lyrics, but the hymn has a very different melody, minor and stirringly beautiful.
But those ones aren't FREE, are they?
Of course, those ones are NOT free lead sheets, being under copyright.
So I go looking for these songs on SheetMusicPlus.com or Musicnotes.com.
A very popular Christmas carol that kids love to play!
After buying the version I like, I loan students page 1, with instructions to give the music back to me and buy their own copy if they want the whole thing.
OR - EVEN BETTER - print out a sample from Musicnotes.com (a newer feature at Musicnotes - you can print out page 1 of the music for free!) and see how your students like the arrangement.
A great favorite among both fiddle and flat-picking guitar players
A beautiful but CHALLENGING vocal round.
The words mean "Give us peace."
A sweet old-fashioned song from the mountains of Appalachia.
This is a very good first finger-picking song for young guitar players, because there are only two chords (which can be the "little" chords), and there are only three beats per measure!
Thumb, index, middle; thumb, index, middle - as easy as it gets.
A 2-page lead sheet of this popular spiritual, with all the Down to the River to Pray lyrics.
"Praise God from whom all blessings flow."
A still-popular song about driving a mule and a barge along the Erie Canal.
A truly lovely hymn I never tire of, about looking beyond the troubles of today to the "field of endless day."
On this page are a vocal ensemble, guitar tabs in 2 keys, lead sheets in several keys, and a beginner piano version.
A goofy song for a "certain age bracket" that uses only 2 chords!
This melody progresses in easy steps downward, after the initial octave leap.
An old-fashioned hymn giving thanks to God for what he has created
A Christmas carol from England, with an arresting minor melody, and sophisticated lyrics ("let nothing you dismay") celebrating the arrival of the SAVIOUR
A fun song about soldiers and eating peanuts that comes from Civil War times.
Though kids may initially be reluctant to try this unfamiliar song, it quickly becomes a favorite!
One of the loveliest and oldest of melodies.
Originally, the words were addressed to a Lady Greensleeves.
Later, the meaningful lyrics "What Child is This" were attached to this melody.
From England comes this unforgettable song about impossible love.
Several different arrangements!
The one shown to the right may seem impossibly high for the average singer, but fear not, I have the lead sheet in many keys, from A to Z!
Just kidding. From A to G.
From France, a pretty Christmas carol
A good beginning round for singers, with words sung by a "hobo"
An opera song about a girl who dreams she is not really a gypsy, but a princess.
With the vocal line in several keys, or with the standard piano accompaniment, also in several keys. This is very easy, for an opera aria.
This is a very pretty love song with a bit of a puzzle in the lyrics.
In the keys of G and F.
For guitar or piano, this is a fun song with opportunities to improve chord technique
A song about flying away joyfully to heaven when the day comes "when I die".
This is a REALLY FUN piece of music.
Tricky rhythm for beginners, at first, because of the 3/4 time signature, but kids will work and work to polish this music!
One of the Christmas songs everyone knows - and it only has 5 notes in the chorus, shown here.
With all the hymn verses, here is Joy to the World as a lead sheet.
Visit the page to see more arrangements, and to download the lyrics pdf.
A fun melody for fiddle or guitar
A very pretty Irish song
An old song that still seems fresh & sweet.
Several versions, including a fancy piano accompaniment for vocalists. Shown here is the key of D (especially easy for beginning guitarists & violinists), but a key of C arrangement with "AlphaNotes" makes this song approachable for brand-new beginning pianists!
A Scottish song about the sad parting that comes to lovers, with war and battle
A patriotic & stirring song
A brisk tune great for fiddle & guitar, from Scotland.
Lyrics can be found on this page as well.
A handy song for beginners!
My students all master this song in order to learn to use chords well!
- another sad but lovely patriotic song about love for one's country - and a harp.
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Often called a "patter song," this particular solo-with-optional chorus from Gilbert & Sullivan is a tongue-twister!
For that reason, even students who initially balk at classical music and light opera will take pride in being able to sing this song FAST.
Very beautiful chords in this song.
This song is offered in numerous keys, and for different clefs.
This is a famous and beloved Christmas song.
This beautiful old Christmas carol has several lead sheets in different keys, as well as guitar tabs!
Just three chords make "O Susannah" an easy song for guitar beginners!
No chord symbols? Visit the page to find out what they are - though this harmony will be very easy for most musicians to figure out!
A super-cute song that mostly moves step-wise.
Very fun lyrics, and easy chords and tabs for beginning guitar.
This is the song I sang as a kid that went "On Top of Spaghetti!"
Also known as "The Little Beggarman".
This is a very fun & popular flat-picking song for young guitarists!
A sweet song with a lovely "answer" to the riddle.
A swingy, energetic, pretty piece, especially nice for fiddle and other melody instruments.
A couple different versions - one showing a finger-picking chord pattern with walking bass.
Lead sheets in many keys.
The most famous of the Scarborough Fair melodies.
An unusual folk piece: Part love song, and part ghost story!
A love song? or a song about travelling "across the wide Missouri"?
Either way, it is a lovely American song that your students will love.
In several keys.
- an adorable American folk song (bluegrass?) with repeating lines
Perhaps the most beloved of Christmas songs, this is the famous German carol "Stille Nacht."
This page has: lead sheets in many keys, plus several versions for piano
This page includes a duet for treble instruments, and s olos for guitar & other stringed instruments
A little-known French carol in a minor key.
- from Scotland; a song about the escape after a devastating battle by Bonnie Prince Charlie.
Very pretty and very singable.
This is an amazingly lovely "lullaby wish" from the group "Secret Garden."
Your students will compete with each other to perform this song at recitals - ask me how I know!
This is another lullaby, but this one is American, by Stephen Foster.
Very sweet, with potential to be a nice first recital song for a young girl.
With lead sheets and also guitar tabs.
"Softly and tenderly, Jesus is calling. calling for you and for me. Come home. " - a moving hymn, quite old-fashioned.
A favorite of my guitar-playing boys, who will even sing the swash-buckling sailors' lyrics!
Several keys and arrangements.
A different song entirely from "Spanish LADIES", this one describes the winsome ways of a pretty lady from Spain.
From Ireland. Several different arrangements, for singers, guitarists, and piano.
This may be THE FAVORITE MUSIC in my studio!
A very fun song from Ireland, arranged in multiple keys for piano, violin, and guitar.
The national anthem of the United States of America.
Arrangements for guitar and piano.
I loved this cowboy song as a child.
This great old song tells a story and uses fun nonsense syllables!
Versions for guitar & other lead instruments, and beginning piano too!
And piano music. and lead sheets for any instrument.
This song is eminently suited to violin!
There is a tricky bowing pattern discussed on this page that makes this melody flow better.
This page features arrangements for guitar and violin, as well as duet.
This is a song for a male singer.
An opera aria, it is slow and SO BEAUTIFUL, with a cadenza at the end.
Check out the page to learn what the seemingly-sad melody is truly about.
Though the vocal line is offered in several keys with chords - a lead sheet version - the standard arrangement with piano accompaniment is also available on this page.
This is a favorite old Christmas song with a bouncy feeling.
This is a beautiful minor song with a complex-sounding melody that builds with soaring intervals.
Much repetition makes learning the melody line easier than you'd think.
This is a fun song.
Arrangements for guitar and piano, and lead sheets in many keys.
Such a lovely song, from Australia.
A very pretty old song with vague but poetic lyrics about love gone cold.
This page has several versions of a Middle C arrangement, for beginner piano.
Several arrangements plus lead sheets of this energetic Christmas carol.
A sea chanty (shanty!) with an irresistible melody and rhythm.
The name of this melody is "Greensleeves", named for a woman named Lady Greensleeves.
But the Christmas lyrics about the new-born baby Jesus are the words most people are familiar with.
Several different arrangements.
There is also a 3-page DUET on this page for guitars or fiddles - very fun!
This is the well-known evocative and older hymn speaking about the love of God, so great that He sent his only Son to rescue us.
This is a sweet and musically satisfying hymn, describing in an oblique way how God treasures children.
Download a jazzy but easy piano arrangement as well as lead sheets in several keys!
This arrangement is handy for piano, because the melody uses just the five fingers with no shifting necessary!
A song about the courage of a young girl and her love for her country.
She carries a banner with the forbidden colors of Ireland, and a young English soldier wants to take it away from her!
Best of all, this song is lovely and singable.
FLASH UPDATE, 5-1-2018: Musicnotes dot com is now offering a free sample of the first page of at least some of their music! (I found that out while looking over music from The Greatest Showman.)
Yes! This process has worked very well for us; many of the students do indeed talk their parents into purchasing their own copies, and others simply memorize the main theme (if it is on page one, the free page) and figure out the rest.
Some of my students will ask for current popular pieces - generally from movies - even older ones like the Harry Potter series - and as long as that first sample page has chord symbols on it, you will be good to go!
I have a lot of church-going families among my students, and these songs are ones that are special to them already; they are thrilled to be able to play them at home!
Well. how do I USE these free lead sheets?
Follow the diagrams below to see the "evolution" of lead sheet playing.
Start with the lead sheet:
Here, the most basic way to play and understand a lead sheet:
Next, try substituting triads (full 3-note chords):
Even easier - using "open" chords (also called "open fifths" or "shells"). This will come easier than you would think, if students know the piano keys well, and also if they have conquered beginner pentatonic piano scales and chords:
Once piano students understand how to add the left-hand chords this way, teach them how to do inversions of the I - IV - V chords.
Here is the way the chords would look with the closest regular G and F inversions (closest to the root position C chord):
Do you recognize the F and G7 chord inversions?
Your students don't need to wait until they encounter them in their method books to begin using them and developing an understanding of the relationship of the 3 main chords .
These forms of the most-used chords (the I, the IV, and the V) are not only prettier, but also ultimately EASIER than jumping back and forth, since the left hand hardly has to move.
With very young beginners, I like to start with the "pinch" chord (which is actually a G7, and not just a G chord) and the "baby" or "little F" chord.
Here's how the open C and pinch G would look with Mary Had a Little Lamb.
What about the IV (four) chord?
Now it is time to change songs, because Mary Had a Little Lamb only uses two chords. Let's change to "Twinkle" to demonstrate the use of the IV chord (which will be "F" if we play it in the key of C, as I usually do with beginners).
Here is the beginning of "Twinkle" using the C chord in root position, and F and G inversions:
Here is the beginning of "Twinkle" with C, pinch G, and little F chords:
Here is Twinkle with pretty broken chords , MUCH more difficult for young students (but where you are heading):
Along the way to playing it like that, is an in-between version:
These are only a few ideas, the beginnings of where you can go with these free lead sheets. See other pages, such as Mary Had a Little Lamb , for more ideas. Have fun!
Audrey:
I just wanted to tell you that I have found your website EXTREMELY helpful!
I have a young group of children that I have starte d a youth choir w ith and I was searching for music ideas and I came across your we bsite. THANK YOU SO MUCH!!
Hi Dana,
I have been looking for some suitable beginner piano sheet music for some time before I found your website.
One of my students has just started to use notation. Previously we were using shapes stuck to the keyboard and on the music as the student was struggling with reading and writing in general.
My biggest struggle was finding easy and fun pieces that weren’t too difficult for a complete beginner.
We have started learning Pizza Please and A,B,C. These pieces have been absolutely perfect as an introduction to reading notes whilst learning a fun piece of music at the same time.
Many Thanks
Christmas carol lyrics from the Bible and an old-fashioned carol-like tune combine in this free Christmas song for SATB choir or a solo vocalist with guitar.
Traditional Irish songs tend to be either bouncy, or tender & sweet. Galway Piper falls into the bouncy, fun-to-play camp!
"Rose" Titanic song is perhaps the most beautiful of all the music from the Titanic movie. See and listen to a lovely piano arrangement!
Down By the Salley Gardens is a pretty song from the British Isles with poetry by William Butler Yeats. Download piano, vocal, & lead sheets for your students!
Choir sheet music for your singers, two lovely rounds: one is major, & the other is minor, but both have lyrics which say "Good Night!"
All the first-year material I give my beginner students.
Piano keyboard sheets, scales, chords, note-reading exercises, and over 256 pages of music!
This beautiful song book for piano & voice "Esther, For Such a Time as This", available as a digital download, tells the riveting story of the time when Jews in ancient Persia faced a foe named Haman, and how a brave young queen risked her life to save her people.
A good choice for a singing story-teller, an operatic group, a short theater production, or a class of children!
This book is also available from Amazon as a paperback.
This book is available as a digital download from this site. Visit this page to see some free examples from the book.
This is the perfect easy start for little pianists.
And when they start reading white-key notes on the staff, this is a fun easy resource to say each week, "Choose a new black-key song at home this week and figure it out to show me next lesson!" They will be spending more time at the piano.
A perfect read aloud storybook
for little boys or girls.
The Adventures of Tonsta highlight the travels of a very young boy with a good heart, who goes about helping folk in trouble.
With a red cap on his head and a sack of tools slung over his shoulder, Tonsta seems to meet people in distress wherever he goes.
Lots of trolls in this book - including one who gives him a Christmas gift!
Please note that all comments are moderated, and will not appear until I have approved them. Also, IF YOU ARE ASKING FOR MUSIC THAT IS NOT IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN, YOUR REQUEST WILL BE IGNORED. That's pretty much any music written in the last 75 years.
Click below to see contributions from other visitors to this page.
THANK YOU SO MUCH Not rated yet
I want to express my appreciation for all of the free resources you have posted, with an unimaginable amount of time spent on your part. This is a …
US Air Force Song Not rated yet
I love your site! The lead sheets are a great help, as I just really want to have a simple melody that my students can follow. I was wondering if you …
Please note that all comments are moderated, and will not appear until I have approved them. Also, IF YOU ARE ASKING FOR MUSIC THAT IS NOT IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN, YOUR REQUEST WILL BE IGNORED. That's pretty much any music written in the last 75 years.
Click below to see contributions from other visitors to this page.
THANK YOU SO MUCH Not rated yet
I want to express my appreciation for all of the free resources you have posted, with an unimaginable amount of time spent on your part. This is a …
US Air Force Song Not rated yet
I love your site! The lead sheets are a great help, as I just really want to have a simple melody that my students can follow. I was wondering if you …
Hi, I'm Dana! (Say that like "Anna".) I'm the owner of Music-for-Music-Teachers.com, and a newer site, SingTheBibleStory.com.
Like some of you, I've been playing the piano since early childhood, and have added a few other instruments along the way, plus an interest in arranging and composing music.
You can find out more about me and the reason for this website at my About Me page.
Christmas carol lyrics from the Bible and an old-fashioned carol-like tune combine in this free Christmas song for SATB choir or a solo vocalist with guitar.
Traditional Irish songs tend to be either bouncy, or tender & sweet. Galway Piper falls into the bouncy, fun-to-play camp!
