Quick answer: Devil Went Down to Georgia viola sheet music is available as a paid arrangement and as free community transcriptions, but there is no official solo-viola edition from the publisher. The best ready-made option is Kyle Pudenz’s 44-page small-ensemble arrangement on Sheet Music Plus ($17.99, Level 5 Advanced), written for two fiddles, viola, bass, and guitar. Free options exist on MuseScore, but quality varies and most are violin parts adapted by other players. Because the viola is tuned a fifth lower than the violin, fiddle parts usually need transposing or octave adjustments, and the piece sits at an intermediate-to-advanced level — expect fast string crossings, double stops, and position shifts throughout.
Few tunes fire up a string player like “The Devil Went Down to Georgia.” The 1979 Charlie Daniels Band hit turns a fiddle contest between the Devil and a young player named Johnny into one of the most famous instrumental showpieces in American music. Violists hear it and want in — but the viola was never the tune’s home instrument, and that creates a real problem: most of the sheet music out there is written for violin, not viola.
This guide fixes that. Below you will find every realistic way to get Devil Went Down to Georgia viola sheet music, a clear comparison of paid versus free sources, an honest difficulty rating section by section, exactly how to adapt violin parts for the viola, and a four-week practice plan that takes the piece from first read-through to performance speed.
What the Piece Actually Is
Before hunting for sheet music, it helps to know what you are buying or downloading. “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” was recorded by the Charlie Daniels Band for the 1979 album Million Mile Reflections. The credited writers are Charlie Daniels, Tom Crain, “Taz” DiGregorio, Fred Edwards, Charles Hayward, and James W. Marshall. The song tells a simple story: the Devil, short on souls, travels to Georgia and challenges a young fiddler named Johnny to a playing contest, wagering a golden fiddle against Johnny’s soul. The Devil plays first, Johnny answers, and Johnny wins.
Musically, the piece is built for speed and showmanship. The original recording is in D major, a friendly key for string players because it uses open D and A strings, and it moves at a driving, fast tempo. The structure is what makes it both exciting and tricky to learn:
| Section | What happens | Why it matters for violists |
|---|---|---|
| Opening riff | The famous fast fiddle figure that everyone recognises | Sets the tempo; your string crossings start here |
| The Devil’s solo | Flashy, aggressive, packed with double stops and slides | The hardest bowing in the piece |
| Johnny’s answer | Equally fast but more melodic, with soulful phrasing | Tests tone and control, not just speed |
| The finale | Both themes return and the tune races to the end | Stamina — you need clean playing when tired |
The whole tune runs about three and a half minutes on the record. That sounds short until you try to play it: nearly every bar demands clean, fast left-hand work and a bow arm that never stops moving.
Why Viola Players Struggle to Find This Sheet Music
Search for devil went down to georgia viola sheet music and you will notice something odd. The results look plentiful, but almost none of them are real, viola-specific editions. Here is what is actually ranking:
- Auto-generated content farms. Several of the top results are near-identical pages on unrelated domains (government and university subdomains hosting spun PDF pages). They repeat the same generic paragraphs — “a compelling topic for musicians and enthusiasts alike” — and link to PDFs that are not real sheet music at all. They tell you the song is in D major and that the viola sounds warm, then stop. No arrangement, no practice advice, no real recommendation.
- A SlideShare-hosted PDF. One content site offers a downloadable viola sheet music PDF through a SlideShare embed. It is a scan of uncertain origin, with no arranger credit, no difficulty marking, and no way to know whether the notes are accurate until you play them.
- A genuine store listing. Sheet Music Plus sells a real, professionally arranged edition — but it is an ensemble arrangement, not a solo viola piece. More on that below.
The gap is obvious: nobody has written the practical guide a violist actually needs — which edition to buy, which free version is worth your time, how to transpose violin parts, and how to practise the hard bars. That is what the rest of this article does.
Where to Find Devil Went Down to Georgia Viola Sheet Music
There are four realistic sources. Each one suits a different player, so the right choice depends on your level, your budget, and whether you want a solo part or an ensemble part.
| Source | Format | Price | Level | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sheet Music Plus — Kyle Pudenz arrangement | Digital download, score + parts, 44 pages | $17.99 | Level 5 (Advanced) | Players who want a correct, complete, performance-ready edition |
| Musicnotes | Digital download, single-instrument arrangements | Usually $5–$10 per arrangement | Varies by arrangement | Players who want a clean solo part with playback |
| MuseScore | Community uploads, free or with a MuseScore account | Free to view; some scores need a subscription to download/print | Varies wildly | Players on a budget who can check the notes themselves |
| Violin/fiddle sheet music, adapted by you | Any fiddle edition, transposed for viola | Price of the fiddle edition | Intermediate–Advanced | Confident players comfortable reading alto clef and transposing |
1. Sheet Music Plus: the Kyle Pudenz Arrangement
The strongest paid option is the arrangement by Kyle Pudenz, published by ViolinVagabond Music and sold through Sheet Music Plus as a digital download. It costs $17.99 and runs to 44 pages of score and parts. It is marked Level 5, which in Sheet Music Plus terms means Advanced.
A few details matter here. The arrangement was written for two fiddles, viola, bass, and guitar — so the viola part is a genuine viola part, written in alto clef for the instrument, not a violin part with the word “viola” pasted on it. The publisher notes that the bass part translates easily to cello, so the same edition works as a string quartet with no bass or guitar. It also suggests substituting a five-string violin for the viola part if you want a triple-fiddle effect. The edition was published in February 2020.
This is the right buy if you play in a group, you want an edition you can trust note-for-note, or you are preparing the piece for a performance and cannot afford wrong notes. It is overkill if you only want to play the tune alone at home — in that case, a cheaper single-line arrangement makes more sense.
2. Musicnotes: Solo Arrangements with Playback
Musicnotes carries several arrangements of the tune, and its catalogue regularly includes viola versions or versions easily adapted for viola. The real advantage of Musicnotes is not the notes on the page — it is the playback. You can hear the arrangement, slow it down, transpose it in the app, and print it immediately after purchase. For a tune where the rhythm of the fast passages is half the battle, hearing a correct version at half speed is worth real money.
Before buying, check three things on the product page: the instrument (make sure it says viola, not violin), the difficulty rating, and the preview. Musicnotes shows the first page free, so you can see whether the part sits in a comfortable viola range or whether it climbs into violin territory and needs octave adjustments.
3. MuseScore: Free Community Arrangements
MuseScore is where most violists actually end up, because it is free. Community members upload their own transcriptions of the tune, including several viola versions and many violin versions you can adapt. The quality range is enormous: some uploads are careful, note-accurate transcriptions, while others are rough sketches with missing bars, wrong rhythms in the fast runs, or notes that sit outside the viola’s comfortable range.
Use MuseScore with a checklist. Before you commit to a score, check the uploader’s other work and ratings, play through the first eight bars slowly and compare them against the recording, and look for the tell-tale signs of a careless transcription — the Devil’s solo missing its double stops, or the opening riff landing on the wrong beat. A free score that teaches you the wrong notes is worse than no score at all. If a MuseScore version passes those checks, it is a perfectly good way to learn the piece for nothing.
4. Adapting Violin or Fiddle Sheet Music Yourself
This is the option most working violists actually use, because fiddle editions of the tune are everywhere. The adaptation is not hard once you understand the two differences between the instruments:
- Tuning. The violin is tuned G-D-A-E. The viola is tuned C-G-D-A — a fifth lower. That means a violin part read as written sounds a fifth lower on viola, and the lowest violin notes (the E string) do not exist on the viola at all.
- Clef. Violin music is written in treble clef. Viola music is written in alto clef. Reading a treble-clef fiddle part on viola means either reading it as written and sounding a fifth lower (often too low and muddy) or reading it up an octave, which puts much of the tune in high positions.
In practice, most violists do one of two things: they read the fiddle part in alto clef transposed up a fifth, which keeps the tune in D major and in a comfortable range, or they play the fiddle part as written and accept that it sounds an octave-plus-a-fifth lower, which works for the slower melodic passages but turns the fast runs into mud. If you are comfortable with alto clef and third position, the transposition route is the better one, and it is a skill worth learning for any fiddle tune, not just this one.
The Copyright Catch Nobody Mentions
Here is something the thin ranking pages get wrong: several of them suggest finding this sheet music for free on IMSLP, the International Music Score Library Project. That is bad advice. IMSLP hosts public-domain works. “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” is a 1979 commercial song, still under copyright, so it is not legally on IMSLP and a “free PDF” of the full copyrighted arrangement from a random file host is usually an infringing copy.
That does not mean free options are off the table. It means you should get them from legitimate places: community transcriptions on MuseScore (where uploaders share their own arrangements), licensed digital stores, or your own adaptation of a legally purchased fiddle edition. If a site offers a polished-looking PDF of the full song for free with no arranger and no licence note, treat it with suspicion — and remember that a wrong-note scan from a pirate PDF is the most expensive “free” sheet music there is, because it costs you the weeks you spend unlearning it.
How Hard Is It, Really? A Section-by-Section Difficulty Rating
Most pages that mention difficulty say the same vague thing: “intermediate to advanced.” That is true but useless. The piece is not uniformly hard — some sections are a comfortable Grade 5, others are genuinely advanced. Here is an honest breakdown.
| Section | Difficulty | The real challenge |
|---|---|---|
| Opening riff | Intermediate | Fast string crossings; keeping the beat steady at speed |
| Verse and vocal melody | Intermediate | Phrasing and tone; easy notes, hard to make musical |
| The Devil’s solo | Advanced | Double stops, slides, and very fast passagework |
| Johnny’s answer | Advanced | Same speed as the Devil’s solo, but with more exposed, melodic playing — mistakes are easier to hear |
| Finale | Advanced | Stamina; clean articulation when your arm is tired |
If you are an intermediate player (roughly Suzuki Book 5–6, or ABRSM Grade 5–6), you can learn the opening riff, the verse melody, and the first half of Johnny’s solo with focused practice. The Devil’s solo and the finale are advanced territory: they demand third position and above, confident shifting, and bow control at speeds where there is no time to think about the next note.
A practical test: if you can play a fast scale in D major in third position, cleanly, at 120 beats per minute in semiquavers, you have the raw technique for the easier sections. If you can do the same in double stops, you are ready for the Devil’s solo.
Techniques You Need Before You Start
The tune is a technique workout disguised as a song. Five skills do most of the work, and it is worth checking you have them before you open the sheet music.
- String crossings. The opening riff jumps between strings constantly. Practise crossing exercises with a loose wrist and a small, economical bow — big arm movements are too slow at this tempo.
- Double stops. The Devil’s solo leans on them. Practise thirds and sixths in D major slowly, listening for clean intonation on both notes at once, before you try them at speed.
- Shifting. Much of the fast passagework sits in third position. If you are still anchored to first position, spend a week on shifting exercises first — the tune will wait.
- Spiccato and sautillé. The bouncy, off-the-string bow strokes give the tune its fiddle character. A controlled spiccato at speed is what separates a performance that sounds like the record from one that sounds like an etude.
- Rhythmic accuracy. The tune is full of syncopation and off-beat accents. Practise with a metronome from day one, and count the fast runs out loud before you play them — the most common beginner error is rushing the easy bars and dragging the hard ones.
A 4-Week Practice Plan
You do not learn this piece by playing it top to bottom every day. You learn it by isolating the hard bars, building speed gradually, and only then stitching it together. This four-week plan assumes 30–45 minutes of practice a day.
| Week | Focus | Daily work | Target by Sunday |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Notes and fingering | Play each section at half speed; mark fingerings and shifts on the score; no metronome pressure | You can play the whole tune slowly, with correct notes, at 60 bpm |
| 2 | Rhythm and bowing | Add the metronome at 70–80 bpm; practise string crossings and double stops as isolated exercises | Clean rhythm at 80 bpm; Devil’s solo notes secure |
| 3 | Speed building | Raise the metronome 5 bpm every two days; record yourself and fix the bars that fall apart | Whole tune at 100–110 bpm with only small slips |
| 4 | Performance polish | Play through without stopping; practise the transitions between sections; play for a friend or record a full take | Full tune at performance tempo, start to finish, with musical phrasing |
Three rules make the plan work. First, never practise a mistake at speed — if a bar falls apart, halve the tempo until it is clean, then build back up. Second, practise the transitions (the last two bars of one section into the first two of the next), because that is where performances actually break down. Third, spend at least a third of each session on the Devil’s solo, even in week one; it is the hardest section and it needs the most repetitions.
Common Mistakes (and How to Fix Them)
- Starting too fast. The opening riff is fun, so everyone plays it at full speed on day one and learns it sloppily. Fix: play it at 60 bpm for three days. It feels insulting. It works.
- Ignoring the dynamics. The recording is not loud all the way through — Johnny’s answer is softer and more singing than the Devil’s solo. Players who play everything fortissimo sound exhausting. Mark the dynamics on your score before your first full play-through.
- Skipping the slow sections. The verse melody feels easy, so players skip it and then stumble on it in performance because they never actually learned the phrasing. Give it the same attention as the fast runs.
- Learning from a wrong transcription. Free PDFs and community uploads sometimes have wrong notes in the fast passages, where errors are hardest to spot. Always check the first 16 bars against the recording before you learn the rest.
- Forgetting the story. This is a contest, not an exercise. The Devil’s solo should sound cocky and dangerous; Johnny’s answer should sound joyful and free. If you play both sections the same way, the audience hears notes but not the story.
Which Option Should You Choose?
If you are still deciding, here is the short version.
- You play in a group or you are performing it: buy the Kyle Pudenz arrangement on Sheet Music Plus. It is the only edition with a real viola part, it is complete, and $17.99 is cheap for 44 pages of trusted music.
- You are learning it alone and you want playback: buy a solo arrangement on Musicnotes, and use the slow-down feature to learn the fast runs by ear as well as by eye.
- You are on a budget and you can check notes yourself: take a well-rated MuseScore transcription, verify the first 16 bars against the recording, and use the four-week plan above.
- You are a confident reader: buy any good fiddle edition, transpose it for viola, and treat the adaptation itself as part of the practice — it will make you a better musician, not just a faster one.
Whatever you choose, do not pay for a “viola edition” that is just a violin part with the title changed. Check the clef (alto, not treble), check the range (the viola’s lowest note is C3, below the violin’s G3 — a part that never goes below G is probably a violin part), and check the preview before you pay.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where can I find Devil Went Down to Georgia viola sheet music for free?
MuseScore is the best free source: community members upload viola transcriptions you can view for free, though some need a subscription to download or print. Check the uploader’s ratings and verify the first 16 bars against the recording before learning from any free score. Be wary of random “free PDF” sites — the song is still under copyright, so polished free PDFs from file hosts are often infringing copies with wrong notes.
Is there an official solo viola edition?
No. There is no official solo-viola edition from the publisher. The closest professional option is Kyle Pudenz’s small-ensemble arrangement on Sheet Music Plus ($17.99, 44 pages, Level 5 Advanced), which includes a genuine viola part written in alto clef for two fiddles, viola, bass, and guitar.
What key is The Devil Went Down to Georgia in?
D major. That is good news for violists: D major uses the open D and A strings, and the key signature has just two sharps (F-sharp and C-sharp). Most arrangements stay in D major, including the Pudenz edition.
Can a beginner play it on viola?
Not the full piece. The verse melody is accessible to an upper-intermediate player, but the Devil’s solo and the finale need advanced technique — fast string crossings, double stops, third position and above, and spiccato bowing. A beginner can learn the opening riff slowly as a fun challenge, but should not expect to play the whole tune at speed for at least a year or two of serious practice.
Do I need to transpose violin sheet music for viola?
Usually, yes. The viola is tuned a fifth lower than the violin (C-G-D-A versus G-D-A-E), and viola music is written in alto clef while violin music uses treble clef. The simplest approach is to read the fiddle part transposed up a fifth in alto clef, which keeps the tune in D major and in a comfortable viola range. If you read it as written, it sounds a fifth lower and the lowest notes fall off the instrument.
How long does it take to learn?
For an intermediate player practising 30–45 minutes a day, expect four to six weeks to play the whole tune at a moderate tempo, and two to three months before it is clean at full performance speed. The four-week plan above gets you to a solid performance at a slightly reduced tempo; full speed takes longer.
What is the hardest part on viola?
The Devil’s solo. It combines the fastest passagework in the piece with double stops and slides, and on viola the wider string spacing and heavier bow make the quick crossings harder than they are on violin. Practise it in isolation, slowly, for at least a third of every practice session.
Is the viola version different from the violin version?
The notes of the tune are the same, but a good viola arrangement is not just a violin part relabelled. It is written in alto clef, it uses the viola’s C string where the violin part would use the G string, and it adjusts fingerings and bowings for the viola’s larger body and slower string response. That is why a dedicated viola part — like the one in the Pudenz arrangement — is worth paying for.
The Bottom Line
Devil Went Down to Georgia viola sheet music is easy to search for and surprisingly hard to find in a form worth learning from. The search results are full of spun content-farm pages that say nothing, a SlideShare scan of unknown accuracy, and one genuine professional edition. Your best options are the Kyle Pudenz arrangement on Sheet Music Plus if you want a trusted, complete edition with a real viola part; a Musicnotes solo arrangement if you want playback and slow-down practice; or a well-checked MuseScore transcription if your budget is zero and your ears are good.
Whichever source you pick, the instrument does the rest. The viola’s warm, deep tone gives the tune a character the fiddle version does not have — the Devil sounds darker, and Johnny’s answer sounds richer. Learn it slowly, respect the dynamics, and give the Devil’s solo the practice time it demands. The golden fiddle is worth it.
