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Williams Tell was a Swiss folk hero who may or may not have actually existed. He is best known today for shooting an apple off of his son’s head with a crossbow, an absurd show of skill that is so often mimicked in other stories that it is known as William Telling.
What is usually left out of the story of William Tell and his crossbow is that the dangerous stunt was actually a punishment for being rude to an Austrian governor rather than a show of bravado. After the incident, Tell became a symbol for rebellion against the Austrians (Tell would later go on to kill the governor who punished him), and the Swiss gained independence in the first decades of the 14th century.
Tell’s heroic deeds were memorialized in a play by Friedrich Schiller the early 1800s, and not long after, Gioachino Rossini wrote an opera based on the play (they were both simply called William Tell). The overture of that opera, specifically the final section of it, is our song for today.
You will 100% recognize the piece as it is still used constantly behind scenes of galloping horses and chases in general. It lodged itself firmly in the collective cultural consciousness of America in the 1930s when it was used as the theme song for the Lone Ranger, and it has been used in countless TV shows, movies, and commercials ever since.
“William Tell Overture” Playing Tips
It’s a safe bet you already know this tune well enough to sing the melody (ba-da-bum, ba-da-bum, ba-da-bum-bum-bum). But despite its seeming simplicity, it looks a bit intimidating on the page.
My philosophy for learning songs with complex rhythms (for beginners, certainly, but also for myself a lot of the time) is to learn by listening rather than trying to figure things out by staring at the page.
Find a performance of the piece on YouTube, and get the patterns in your head, preferably while looking at the sheet music so you can see the rhythms you are hearing. My arrangement is clearly very abbreviated, but it includes the most memorable parts of the melody.
A couple notes on notation that might be unfamiliar: The markings above the opening chords are there to indicate strumming direction. The upside-down boxy U is for a down strum; the V is for an up strum. The opening G chord is thus strummed:
Down, down-up-Down, down-up-Down, Down, Down
Also potentially unfamiliar is the curved line connecting a quarter note and a sixteenth note in measures 6 and 15. These are called ties, and they are played as a single note that lasts for the length of the two notes that are tied together, in this case 1/4 + 1/16. If you play the notes individually, it won’t sound right.
Click the link or the ‘Download’ button below to see the sheet music if your browser doesn’t display the embedded PDF. Happy picking!
“William Tell Overture” Low G Sheet Music Download
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