General

Please do not down­load co­py­right­ed ma­ter­i­al un­less there is a no­tice giv­ing per­miss­ion to do so. Click here for de­tails on what is co­py­right­ed, and what is not.

How to Download a File

The fol­low­ing in­struct­ions ap­ply to any file for which we pro­vide a link (underlined in blue)

Site Index

To down­load the site index, click here. This file in­cludes an al­pha­bet­i­cal in­dex of hymn ti­tles, and shows the MI­DI file used as the pri­ma­ry back­ground tune for each hymn.

MIDI Files

If you want MI­DI files for a small num­ber of spe­ci­fic hymns, most brows­ers let you do this by right click­ing the link that says “MIDI.” To down­load com­pressed ZIP ar­chives with our pub­lic do­main MIDI files, click the file names below. The files are di­vid­ed into small chunks to make them ea­si­er to down­load (you don’t lose as much if your con­nect­ion goes down in mid-tran­sfer).

Note: Some files have an ad­di­tion­al “organ” ver­sion; when pre­sent, this is a file of the same name, with an add­ed “-o”.

Scores

If you want scores (sheet mu­sic) for a small num­ber of spe­ci­fic hymns, most brows­ers let you do this by right click­ing the link that says “Score.” To down­load com­pressed ZIP ar­chives with our pu­blic do­main score files, click the file names be­low.

Notes

• The score files are in Note­Wor­thy Com­pos­er (NWC) for­mat. You can down­load soft­ware to view or print them from Note­Wor­thy Soft­ware. Note: We do not sell or give tech­nic­al sup­port for NWC. Please di­rect any quest­ions about NWC to Note­Wor­thy Soft­ware.

   

• If you’re look­­ing for a spe­ci­fic piece of mu­sic and don’t find it in the Cy­ber Hymn­al, check out the Note­Wor­thy Com­pos­er Script­or­i­um; it has thou­sands of NWC files from var­i­ous compos­ers and gen­res.

• Ma­ny scores do not in­clude lyr­ics, since many tunes have mu­lti­ple sets of lyr­ics (i.e., are used for more than one hymn). You can ea­si­ly cut and paste lyrics from in­di­vid­u­al hymn pag­es.

• We’ve made some min­or mod­i­fi­ca­tions to scores to make some M­IDI files sound ac­cept­a­ble. These in­clude ex­tra slurs & ex­tended end notes. If you want a score suit­a­ble for print­ing, you can ea­si­ly un­do these changes with light ed­it­ing.Please don’t ask us for scores with these chang­es re­moved, or scores with lyr­ics, as we lack the time to han­dle such re­quests.

Lyrics

To get lyr­ics, cut and paste from your brows­er win­dow.

• Christian Drama Books
• Christian Fiction Review
• Christian Juggler
• His-Net Christian Network
• MacChristians.com
• My Utmost for His Highest
• WebChristian

FIRST HYMN IN ENGLISH WRITTEN FOR PUBLIC WORSHIP

Behold the Glories of the Lamb (Isaac Watts, circa 1688).

OLDEST HYMN FOR WHICH WE KNOW THE AUTHOR

Shepherd of Tender Youth (Clement of Alexandria, circa 200).

MOST POPULAR HYMN

Based on NetHymnal traffic, Amazing Grace is the runaway winner. Blessed Assurance is the runner up.

HYMNS SUNG IN MOVIES THAT WON OR WERE NOMINATED FOR ACADEMY AWARDS

• Art Thou Weary, Art Thou Languid?
• Blessed Assurance
• Blest Be the Tie that Binds
• Children of the Heavenly King
• Eternal Father, Strong to Save
• Fight the Good Fight with All Thy Might
• For the Beauty of the Earth
• Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah
• In the Garden
• In the Sweet By and By
• Jerusalem
• Leaning on the Everlasting Arms
• Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming
• Nearer, My God, to Thee
• Old Time Religion
• Onward, Christian Soldiers
• Shall We Gather at the River?
• Softly and Tenderly Jesus Is Calling
• Son of God Goes Forth to War, The
• When the Roll Is Called Up Yonder

HYMNS SUNG AT CELEBRITY WEDDINGS & FUNERALS

• A Mighty Fortress Is Our God
• Abide with Me
• As Shadows Cast by Cloud and Sun
• Battle Hymn of the Republic
• Beautiful Isle of Somewhere
• Eternal Father, Strong to Save
• Faith of Our Fathers
• Guide Me, O Thou Great Redeemer
• Hark! from the Tombs a Doleful Sound
• Ho! Reapers of Life’s Harvest
• How Firm a Foundation
• I Vow to Thee, My Country
• King of Love My Shepherd Is, The
• Master, the Tempest Is Raging
• Nearer, My God, to Thee
• O Love of God, How Strong and True
• Onward, Christian Soldiers
• Our God, Our Help in Ages Past
• Peace, Troubled Soul
• Rock of Ages
• Safe in the Arms of Jesus
• Shall We Gather at the River?
• Sing with All the Saints in Glory
• Softly and Tenderly Jesus Is Calling

HYMNS WHOSE AUTHORS NEVER HEARD THEM SUNG

• Abide with Me
• Beneath the Cross of Jesus
• Great God of Wonders
• Happy the Home When God Is There
• Into the Woods
• My Redeemer
• This Is My Father’s World

HYMNS WRITTEN SHORTLY BEFORE THE AUTHOR’S DEATH

• Abide with Me
• All Creatures of Our God and King
• All Glory, Laud and Honor
• Forward! Be Our Watchword
• Holy, Holy, Holy
• Praise to the Lord, the Almighty
• This Is My Father’s World

HYMNISTS THAT WERE MURDERED

• Ghevont Tourian

HYMNS INSPIRED BY MURDERS

• Day of Wrath, O Day of Mourning

HYMNS THAT FIRST APPEARED IN NOVELS

• Jesus Loves Me
• We Would See Jesus
• When Israel, of the Lord Beloved

HYMNS WRITTEN BY NON-CHRISTIANS

• All Hail to Thee, Immanuel
• Hail the Glorious Golden City

TUNES SHARED WITH SECULAR SONGS

• Afton (Flow Gen­tly, Sweet Af­ton)
• Auld Lang Syne (tra­di­tion­al Scot­tish mel­o­dy)
• Austria (from a Cro­a­tian folk mel­o­dy)
• Danby (The Wa­ter Is Wide)
• Erie (World War I)
• Greensleeves (Mid­dle Ages; lyr­ics ru­mored to have been writ­ten by King Hen­ry VIII)
• Landås (Nor­we­gian folk mel­o­dy)
• Londonderry (Ir­ish mel­o­dy)
• John Brown’s Body (19th Cen­tu­ry Amer­i­can)
• Tramp, Tramp, Tramp (Amer­i­can ci­vil war)

MOST PROLIFIC HYMNIST

Probably Frances Jane (Fan­ny) Crosby (1820-1915): she wrote over 8,000 hymns. It’s said ed­it­ors didn’t want to pub­lish so many hymns by the same lyr­i­cist in one book, so they asked her to use pseu­do­nyms (she used over 200). For a list of Fan­ny’s hymns that we have, click here.

Runners up for most pro­li­fic hymn­ist in­clude Charles Wes­ley, George Ma­the­son, and Isaac Watts.

YOUNGEST HYMNIST

Our guess is John Milton, who was 15 years old when he wrote Let Us with a Gladsome Mind. Runners up include:

• William Ralph Featherstone, 16, My Jesus, I Love Thee
• Anna L. Coghill, 18, Work, for the Night Is Coming
• Henry K. White, 19, When Marshaled on the Nightly Plain

OLDEST HYMNIST

The current contender is Fanny Crosby: The day be­fore her death at age 95, she wrote her last hymn, to console a neighbor who had lost a child. Another work from Fanny’s later years is The Blood-Washed Throng, which she wrote at age 86.

BLIND HYMNISTS

• Fanny Crosby
• George Matheson
• William Walford
• Robert Williams

HYMNISTS WHO DIED OUTSIDE THEIR NATIVE COUNTRY

• Maltbie Babcock
• Philip Doddridge
• Henry Gilmour
• Reginald Heber
• Adoniram Judson
• Haldor Lillenas
• Henry Lyte
• Edgar Park
• Adelaide Pollard
• Joseph Scriven
• Horatio Spafford
• Theodulph of Orleans
• Ghevont Tourian
• Howard Walter

NOBEL PRIZE WINNING HYMNISTS

• Rudyard Kipling (Literature, 1907)

HYMNISTS WITH FOSSILS NAMED AFTER THEM

• Joachim Neander

HYMNISTS WITH WELL KNOWN SECULAR ACHIEVEMENTS

HYMNIST WITH THE MOST UNUSUAL LIFE STORY

A very subjective category, but our vote goes to Daniel de Marbelle.

DENOMINATIONS WITH FORMAL HYMN PROCEDURES

John Wesley’s singing rules for Methodists (he had a Method for everything!):

1. Learn the tune.
    
2. Sing them as they are printed.
    
3. Sing all. “If it is a cross to you, take it up and you will find a blessing.”
    
4. Sing lustily and with a good courage.
    
5. Sing modestly. Do not bawl.
    
6. Sing in time. Do not run before or stay behind.
    
7. Above all, sing spiritually. Have an eye to God in every word you sing. Aim at pleasing Him more than yourself, or any other creature. In order to do this, attend strictly to the sense of what you sing, and see that your heart is not carried away with the sound, but offered to God continually.

This page ex­press­es our gra­ti­tude for those peo­ple and or­gan­i­za­tions which have grant­ed per­miss­ion to put their co­py­right­ed ma­ter­i­al on­line.

Covenant Publications
5101 N. Francisco Avenue
Chicago, IL 60625

Hope Publishing Company
380 South Main Place
Carol Stream, IL 60188

New Hope Music
PO Box 1612
Westboro, MA 01581

New Jerusalem Music
PO Box 225
Clarksboro, NJ 08020

Rocksmith Music

Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp.
Warner Brothers Publications
PO Box 4340,
Miami, FL 33014

The de­sign & HTML code of our Web pages are co­py­right­ed, & may not be re­pro­duced. Other co­py­right­ed material is clear­ly marked as such, & is sub­ject to the us­u­al, un­for­tu­nate, le­gal restrictions.

The site name is trade­marked to pro­tect our con­tin­ued abil­i­ty to use it, since some un­e­thi­cal peo­ple have cre­at­ed links with NetHymn­al name that lead to other sites.

• Which is in the public domain. This in­cludes ma­ter­i­al which pre-dates cop­y­right laws, and ma­ter­i­al whose co­py­right has ex­pired. In the Unit­ed States, ma­ter­i­al dat­ed 1922 or ear­li­er is usu­al­ly in the pub­lic domain; other count­ries’ laws vary.OR
• For which we have the co­py­right hold­er’s per­miss­ion; per­miss­ions are shown on the in­di­vid­u­al hymn pag­es.

In some cas­es, we could not ful­ly trace the or­i­gin of a hymn, but due to its source, it is be­lieved to be in the pub­lic do­main. If we have in­ad­ver­tent­ly in­cluded a work with a co­py­right still in force, let us know & we will re­move it im­med­i­ate­ly. If any co­py­right in­fringe­ment has oc­curred, it was unin­ten­tion­al. This site’s pur­pose is to provide a wor­ship and teach­ing re­source, and help ad­vance God’s king­dom.