Thaxted

How hard is it?

Hard, and not because someone remembered it that way. These five numbers come off the melody itself, the same way the app grades its lessons.

Fastest passage

326 ms

per note, at 92 bpm

Ornaments

5

notes shorter than a snap

Quick leaps

0

of a fourth or wider

Span

16

semitones, A#3 to D5

Black keys

21%

of the notes

• nothing in it moves faster than about 326 ms a note, so the hands are never rushed
• 5 notes are shorter than a snap - it is built on ornament
• it spans 16 semitones, wider than an octave
• it covers 89 notes across 12 phrases, which is how it is taught in the app, one breath at a time

What you can play it on

6 of the instruments in the workshop can teach this tune. Where the number differs from "all of them", the reason is the instrument, not the song: a diatonic kalimba has no sharps, and a pentatonic handpan or guzheng has no fourth or seventh at all.

• Piano at written pitch
• Guitar at written pitch
• Kalimba up 2 semitones
• Violin at written pitch
• Xylophone up 14 semitones
• Accordion at written pitch
• Handpan not this one
• Guzheng not this one
• Drums not this one

Where this transcription came from

Holst's hymn from Jupiter ("I Vow to Thee, My Country"), public domain, from the Mutopia edition in its own B flat: mutopiaproject.org/ftp/HolstGT/Thaxted - midi_read.py Thaxted.mid 0 90 --track 2 --voice The whole hymn, middle strain in its low register as written. --voice keeps the tune where the staff's second voice brushes it; the bass staff rides under.

Mutopia Project

Every melody in this catalogue is public domain and was transcribed from a named source, then checked against it by a tool rather than by ear. None of them was written down from memory - which is the usual reason two versions of a folk tune on the internet disagree.