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Piano sheet music for kids · Nursery rhyme · Level 4: Up to the C above
Little Bo-Peep
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.
The chords in this piece
Your left hand plays 5 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). Oom-pah in 6/8: the bottom note on the first beat, the rest of the chord on the second. G7 comes both ways, whole with the low G and without it. 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.
G – B – D – F · Left hand 5 3 2 1
G, B, D and F, the whole G7 chord. Little finger reaches down to the low G; the other three fingers play B, D and F together.
About this arrangement
James William Elliott’s 1870 tune for Little Bo-Peep, a gentle 6/8. The right hand starts at the top of C position on G with the little finger and reaches up to the C above in bar 1 and bar 7. New here are the slurs: in bar 3 “where” is sung over two notes, C and D, and in bar 7 “tails” is sung over G and E, so those notes have no word of their own. Bar 5 has three repeated As for “Leave them a-”. The left hand plays a bass note and a chord on each big beat, with the F and G chords sharing bar 5.
Practice tip: Sing it while you play so the two-note words come out right: “whe-ere” and “ta-ails”. Keep the little finger ready on G, because the tune keeps coming back to it.
The words
Little BoPeep has lost her sheep and can't tell where to find them; Leave them alone, and they'll come home, wagging their tails behind them.
A short history
Little Bo-Peep is listed as number 6487 in the Roud Folk Song Index. The earliest known record of the rhyme is a manuscript of about 1805, and it was printed in Gammer Gurton’s Garland in 1810, though the phrase “bo-peep” is much older: in the 16th century it was the name of the game we call peekaboo, and it turns up in Shakespeare’s King Lear.
The first verse is the one everyone knows. Later verses, in which Bo-Peep falls asleep, dreams she hears the sheep bleating, finds their tails hung on a tree and tries to pin them back on, were added during the 19th century.
The tune is James William Elliott’s, from his National Nursery Rhymes and Nursery Songs of 1870, the collection that fixed the melodies of many English rhymes.
Quick facts
- Tune
- James William Elliott, 1870
- Words
- Traditional (English, 19th 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 128 of 201)
- Type
- Nursery rhyme
- 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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