Skip to content
hymnal.net
hymnal.net
My Songs

About Numbered Notation

All steps
  1. The numbers are the notes of a scale
  2. “1=C” tells you where to start
  3. Dots make a note higher or lower
  4. How long each note lasts
  5. 0 means rest
  6. Bar lines and the time signature
  7. Curves: ties and slurs
  8. The words sit under the numbers
  9. Repeat signs and 1. 2. endings
  10. Minor keys: “6=A”
  11. Put it together: a line of a hymn
  12. Check yourself
  13. Try it on a hymn

The numbers are the notes of a scale

Numbered notation (jianpu, 简谱) writes a melody as numbers instead of notes on a staff. You do not need to read music: take one small step at a time and press Play on any example to hear it while each number lights up. Sound only starts when you press Play.

Instead of notes on a staff, each note is a number from 1 to 7. They are the seven steps of the scale you already know: do re mi fa sol la ti. After 7 the scale starts again at 1.

The seven numbers with their names. Press Play and say each name as its number lights up.
Sing along: do re mi fa sol, and back down to do.

If you can sing do re mi, you can already sing every number from 1 to 7. Tap or click any number to hear just that note.

“1=C” tells you where to start

At the top left of the sheet you will see something like 1=C. It means the number 1 (do) is the note C, and every other number counts up from there. 1=G means do is G, so the whole tune sits a little higher. Nothing else changes: the same numbers make the same shape, only higher or lower.

1=C: do is C.
1=G: the same numbers, starting higher.

Not sure where C is? On a piano it is the white key just left of the two black keys. Or ignore the letter and start on any note that is comfortable for your voice: the tune only has to keep its shape. The − and + key buttons on a hymn page shift the key for you.

Dots make a note higher or lower

A dot above a number means one octave higher. A dot below means one octave lower. Two dots mean two octaves. No dot is the middle range, where most of a tune lives. The name stays the same; only the height changes.

The same number at three heights: dot below, no dot, dot above.
A tune that climbs: it starts on a low sol and ends on a high do.

How long each note lasts

Tap your foot at a steady pace: each tap is a beat. A plain number lasts one beat, so you sing a new number on every tap. Dashes, lines and dots change that.

A plain number is one beat

Four numbers, four beats: one number for each tap.

A dash holds the note longer

Each dash adds one beat. The 5 lasts two beats and the 3 lasts four.

A line underneath makes it shorter

One line is half a beat, so two underlined numbers share one beat. (Two lines are a quarter of a beat.)

A dot after makes it half as long again

A dot after a number adds half its length. The first 5 lasts a beat and a half, and the short 3 fills the rest of the second beat.

0 means rest

A 0 is silence for one beat. Keep counting and keep tapping, but do not sing. Dashes after a 0 make the silence longer, just as they hold a note longer.

Sing 1 3 5, stay quiet for one beat, then come back down. Rests light up too, so you can feel the pause.

Bar lines and the time signature

Tall lines cut the music into bars, each holding the same number of beats. The two small numbers at the start, like 4/4 or 3/4, say how many: 4/4 is four beats in every bar, 3/4 is three. The first beat of each bar is the strongest, so lean on it a little. A double line with a thick edge marks the end.

4/4: count 1 2 3 4, 1 2 3 4. The first beat of each bar sounds a little louder.
3/4: count 1 2 3, 1 2 3, the lilt of a waltz.

Curves: ties and slurs

A curve over numbers joins them. If it joins two of the same number, it is a tie: sing the note once and hold it for both. If it joins different numbers, it is a slur: sing them all on one syllable, gliding from one to the next.

A tie: the 5 is sung once and held across the bar line, six beats in all.
A slur: “Him” is sung on two notes, 3 then 2.

The words sit under the numbers

Each number gets one syllable, written right underneath it. A short dash after part of a word means the word carries on under the next number. If a number has nothing under it, it belongs to a curve or a dash: keep singing the syllable you are on.

Read left to right, one syllable for each number: Twin-kle, twin-kle, lit-tle star.

Repeat signs and 1. 2. endings

A bar line with two dots, :|, means go back and sing that part again, from the matching |: sign (or from the start if there is none). Sometimes the repeat has two endings. Sing ending 1. the first time; on the repeat, skip it and sing ending 2. instead.

Play it: you hear the 1. ending, the repeat, then the 2. ending. Watch the highlight jump back.

Minor keys: “6=A”

A song in a minor key, which usually sounds more serious or tender, is labeled like 6=A instead of 1=C. It means the number 6 (la) is the home note, here A. The numbers keep their usual names; the tune simply feels at home on 6 and often ends there. 6=A uses the same notes as 1=C.

It starts and ends on 6 (la), the home note. Listen to the darker colour.

Put it together: a line of a hymn

This is the first line of hymn 8, “Praise God, from whom all blessings flow”, written in numbered notation. Try the slow tempo first, and sing the words as each number lights up.

1=G in 4/4. Three silent beats, then “Praise” on beat 4. The dots under 7, 6 and 5 mean those notes dip one octave lower.

Check yourself

Four quick questions, with no score and no pressure. Tap an answer to see right away why it is right or wrong. You can always try another answer.

Tap the number that is held the longest.

Tap the 5 that is one octave higher than the first 5.

What does a 0 mean?

Under 1=G, which note is the number 1?

Try it on a hymn

You opened this from a hymn that has a Numbered view, so you can try it right now.

  1. Look at the top left of the sheet: the key, such as 1=D, and the time signature, such as 3/4.
  2. Find the first number and sing it. Then follow the numbers from left to right with the words underneath, one syllable for each number. Press Play in the player to hear the recording while you follow.
  3. Letters above the numbers (C, G7) are chords for a guitarist or pianist. Ignore them while you learn the tune.
  4. To be guided, open the Learn tab and press Play. Under Display, set Learn notation to Numbered (or choose Numbered on the Lead Sheet tab first). For hymns that have numbered lines, each line of numbers scrolls into view in time with the recording while a bouncing ball follows the words; other hymns show the piano notation there. The Speed menu slows it down.

Open this guide as its own page

Download limit reached

I hear the words of love

Assurance and Joy of Salvation Secured by Divine Provisions

English332
1
I hear the words of love,
I gaze upon the blood,
I see the mighty sacrifice,
And I have peace with God.
2
’Tis everlasting peace!
Sure as Jehovah’s Name,
’Tis stable as His steadfast throne,
For evermore the same.
3
The clouds may go and come,
And storms may sweep my sky;
This blood-sealed friendship changes not,
The Cross is ever nigh.
4
My love is ofttimes low,
My joy still ebbs and flows,
But peace with Him remains the same,
No change my Savior knows.
5
I change, He changes not;
The Christ can never die;
His love, not mine, the resting-place,
His truth, not mine, the tie.
6
The Cross still stands unchanged,
Though heaven is now His home;
The mighty stone is rolled away,
But yonder is His tomb!
7
And yonder is my peace,
The grave of all my woes!
I know the Son of God has come,
I know He died and rose.
8
I know He liveth now
At God’s right hand above;
I know the throne on which He sits,
I know His truth and love!

Delete Comment

Delete this comment? This cannot be undone.
Peter Mullally

Manchester, Lancashire, United Kingdom

Aug 20, 2022

In an ever changing world - never for the better - it’s good to remember Jesus is our only stability. The same yesterday and today and forever! God bless. Maranatha!

Read more
Ana Lara

Storrs, Connecticut, United States

May 27, 2022

Horatius Bonar has had representatives among the clergy of the Church of Scotland during more than two centuries. His father James Bonar, second solicitor of excise in Edinburg, was a man of intellectual power, varied learning, and deep piety. Horatius Bonar was born in Edinburgh, December 19, 1808 and educated at the High School and the University of Edinburgh. After completing his studies, he was licensed to preach and became assistant to Reverend John Lewis, minister of Saint James, Leith. He was ordained minister of the North Parish, Kelso, on November 30, 1837. He left the established church at the Great Disruption also known as the Disruption of 1843; a schism in which 450 evangelical ministers broke away from the Church of Scotland. He was awarded the doctorate of divinity by the University of Aberdeen in 1853. In 1866 he was transferred to the Chalmers Memorial Church, the Grange, Edinburgh; and in 1883 he was chosen Moderator of the General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland.

Dr. Bonar’s hymns and poems were, he tells us, composed through varied personal circumstances; in many cases he cannot recall what those circumstances were; they also appeared in several publications, but nearly all have been published or re-published in the Songs of the Wilderness, 1843-44. The Bible Hymns Book, 1845. Hymns Original and Selected, 1846. Hymns of the Faith and Hope: first series, 1857; second series, 1861; third series, 1866. The Song of the New Creation, 1872. My Old Letters, a long poem, 1877. Hymns of the Nativity, 1879. Communion Hymns, 1881. In addition to numerous prose works, he has also edited the New Jerusalem; a Hymn of the Olden Time, 1852.

Dr. Bonar’s poems – – including many beautiful lyrics, several Psalm versions, and translations from the Greek and Latin, a large number of hymns, and a long meditative poem – – are very numerous. Dr. Bonar’s scholarship is thorough and extensive; and his poems show the grace of style and wealth of allusion (an indirect reference especially in literature) which were the fruit of his spiritual experiences. Affected somewhat by current literary moods, still less by the influence of other religious poetry, they reveal great susceptibility to the emotional power which the phases of natural and spiritual life exercise; the phases of natural and spiritual life used mainly for depicting spiritual life, and handled for this purpose with greater delicacy of touch more so than the Olney Hymns and with less conscious purpose that in the Christian Year. As a result of the susceptibility and from habitual looking at the Second Coming of Christ as the era of this world’s true bliss, his hymns and poems are distinguished by a tone of pensive reflection, which could be mistaken for pessimism. But they are more than the record of emotion; another element is supplied by his intellectual and personal grasp of divine truth, these truths particularly: – – the gift of a Substitute, our Blessed Savior; Divine grace, righteous yet free and universal in offer; immediate reliance upon the privilege of immediate assurance through that grace; communion with God, especially in the Lord’s Supper, the privilege of cherishing the highest conceptions which Scripture warrants; and finally the Second Coming of our Lord: by his celebration of these and other truths as a source and strength of spiritual life, his hymns are protected from the blight of unhealthy, sentimental introspection.

In Great Britain and America nearly 100 of Dr. Bonar’s hymns are in common use. They are found in almost all modern hymnals; four in Hymns Ancient & Modern to more than 20 in the American Songs of the Sanctuary, New York., 1865–72. The most widely known are, “A few more years shall roll;” “Come Lord and tarry not;” “Here, O my Lord, I see Thee face to face;” “I heard the voice of Jesus say;” “ The Church has waited long;” and “Thy way, not mine, O Lord.”

(Hymnary.org)

Read more
Woodiwiss K

Richmond, CA, United States

Dec 19, 2013

Words and message remaining wonderful Jesus our Source.

Read more
Kara

United States

Nov 27, 2013

I change, He changes not; The Christ can never die; His love, not mine, the resting-place, His truth, not mine, the tie. What an Amazing God we serve! Thank You Lord!

Read more