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Piano sheet music for kids · Folk song · Level 4: Up to the C above
Lavender's Blue
Free beginner piano sheet music: C major, 6/8, 8 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.
About this arrangement
The old English song in a gentle 6/8, as printed for schools in 1927. Every “dil-ly, dil-ly” is a quick run of four semiquavers, F E D C, and most of the tune sits in C position, thumb on middle C and little finger on G. Bars 2 and 6 jump a whole octave from middle C up to the C above, for “la-ven-der’s green” and “who told you so”, and bar 7 starts there again, so the hand has to move up for those bars. The last bar dips to the B below middle C for “me” before landing on C. The left hand plays a bass note and a chord on each big beat.
Practice tip: Play the semiquaver runs slowly first, F E D C with fingers 4 3 2 1, until they are even; they are the same four notes every time. Then add the long notes before them.
The words
Lavender's blue, dilly, dilly, lavender's green; when I'm a king, dilly, dilly, you shall be queen. Who told you so, dilly, dilly, who told you so? 'Twas mine own heart, dilly, dilly, that told me so.
A short history
Lavender’s Blue is listed as number 3483 in the Roud Folk Song Index. It began as a broadside ballad printed in London between about 1672 and 1685 under the title “Diddle, Diddle, or The Kind Country Lovers”, and the original verses were not for children at all.
A cleaned-up nursery version appeared in Songs for the Nursery in 1805, and the song was sung to several tunes through the 19th century. The version arranged here, with the words “dilly, dilly” and the lavender that is blue and green, is the one printed in The Everyday Song Book of 1927, an American school collection.
The song had a second life in 1949, when a new arrangement called “Lavender Blue (Dilly Dilly)” was sung in a Disney film and nominated for an Academy Award. That later arrangement is still in copyright, so this is the older tune.
Quick facts
- Tune
- Traditional (English, 17th century)
- Key
- C major
- Time signature
- 6/8
- Length
- 8 bars
- Tempo
- Gently, dotted crotchet = 56
- Difficulty
- Level 4: Up to the C above (piece 140 of 201)
- Type
- Folk song
- Hands
- Both: melody in the right hand, chords in the left
- Copyright
- Public domain tune; arrangement by Digital Greenhouse, free for personal and classroom use
Questions and answers
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