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Piano sheet music for kids · Australian · Level 5: A wider range
Click Go the Shears
Free beginner piano sheet music: C major, 4/4, 16 bars. Press Play to hear it on a real piano, slow it down, or hear one hand at a time; click any note to start from there; print it for the music stand.
The chords in this piece
Your left hand plays four chords in this piece. The shaded keys are the notes of each chord, and the numbers under them are the left-hand fingers (1 is the thumb). All four C-position shapes, one held chord on each half of the bar. All the common piano chords, with diagrams →
C – E – G · Left hand 5 3 1
C, E and G: the home chord. Little finger on C, middle finger on E, thumb on G.
C – F – A · Left hand 5 2 1
C, F and A. The same three notes as F major, rearranged so the little finger stays on C; the thumb stretches up one key to A.
B – D – G · Left hand 5 3 1
B, D and G. The same three notes as G major, rearranged so the hand barely moves: the little finger slides down one key from C to B.
B – D – F · Left hand 5 3 2
B, D and F: G7 without its bottom G. Little finger down to B, finger 3 on D, finger 2 on F.
About this arrangement
The shearing-shed song, sung to an American Civil War tune. Nearly every beat is a dotted quaver and a semiquaver (“long-short”), the skipping rhythm of the shears, and the verse and chorus both run from middle C up to the C above, with one E above that on the middle “click” in bar 10. “Fixed” in bar 5 and “move” in bar 12 are each sung over two slurred notes, and “yoe” and “go” are tied across the beat. The left hand plays plain half-note chords, C, F, G and G7, so you can give all your attention to the rhythm.
Practice tip: Say the words in rhythm before you play: “OUT on the BOARD the OLD shear-er STANDS”. Keep the short notes really short and the piece will swing.
The words
Out on the board the old shearer stands, grasping his shears in his thin bony hands. Fixed is his gaze on a barebellied yoe, glory if he gets her, won't he make the ringer go. Click go the shears, boys, click, click, click, wide is his blow and his hands move quick, the ringer looks around and is beaten by a blow, and curses the old snagger with the barebellied yoe.
A short history
The tune is “Ring the Bell, Watchman”, written by the American songwriter Henry Clay Work in 1865 to celebrate the end of the Civil War. The Australian words were printed in the Bacchus Marsh Express in Victoria in 1891 as “The Bare Belled Ewe”, signed only with initials, and shearers passed the song around the sheds from there.
The words are full of shed slang. The “ringer” is the fastest shearer, the “snagger” a rough one, a “yoe” is a ewe, and a “bare-bellied” ewe has little wool on her belly, so she is quick to shear and a lucky draw.
The song was known in the bush for decades but became famous when the American singer Burl Ives recorded it during his Australian tour in 1952, and it has been a school-songbook standard ever since.
Quick facts
- Tune
- Tune: Henry Clay Work, 1865 (“Ring the Bell, Watchman”)
- Words
- Traditional (Australian, 1891)
- Key
- C major
- Time signature
- 4/4
- Length
- 16 bars
- Tempo
- Briskly, crotchet = 112
- Difficulty
- Level 5: A wider range (piece 168 of 201)
- Type
- Australian
- Hands
- Both: melody in the right hand, chords in the left
- Chords
- C, F, G and G7 (diagrams above)
- Copyright
- Public domain tune; arrangement by Digital Greenhouse, free for personal and classroom use
Questions and answers
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