Little Miss Muffet

About this arrangement

The spider rhyme in a lilting 6/8, two big beats to a bar, with the tune Alfred Moffat printed in 1911. Bars 1, 3, 5 and 7 are the same shape, C E G G E G, so the right hand hardly moves from C position; “sat on a tuf-fet” in bar 2 and “sat down be-side her” in bar 6 reach up with the little finger to A and then the C above. Two words are sung over two notes: “curds” in bar 3 slides from G to E, and “whey” in bar 4 (and “way” in bar 8) moves from A up to the C above, the same stretch as bars 2 and 6. The left hand plays a bass note and a chord on each big beat; it changes to A minor on the first beat of bars 2 and 6, under the stretch, and to F on the first beat of bars 4 and 8, coming back to C each time.

Practice tip: Learn bar 1 first and notice that bars 3, 5 and 7 are the same. For bar 2, let the little finger reach A and then stretch to C, then bring the hand straight back to C position.

The words

Little Miss Muffet, She sat on a tuffet, Eating her curds and whey; Down came a spider, Which sat down beside her And frightened Miss Muffet away.

A short history

Little Miss Muffet was first printed in Songs for the Nursery in London in 1805; nothing earlier has been found. It is number 20605 in the Roud Folk Song Index. Iona and Peter Opie thought it was probably older, because it is built the same way as Little Jack Horner, which is known from the 1720s.

A popular story makes Miss Muffet the daughter of Thomas Muffet, a physician and spider expert who died in 1604, but there is no evidence for it and the Opies were sceptical of a gap of two hundred years. A tuffet was most likely a small grassy mound, though illustrators have drawn it both ways: John Everett Millais painted her on a bank in 1884, and Kate Greenaway drew a low stool in 1900. Curds and whey is milk that has set and separated, like cottage cheese.

The tune is the one Alfred Moffat harmonised for Our Old Nursery Rhymes, published by Augener in 1911 with pictures by Henriette Willebeek le Mair.

Quick facts

Tune

Traditional (English, printed 1805; tune as printed by Alfred Moffat, 1911)

Key

C major

Time signature

6/8

Length

8 bars

Tempo

Lightly, dotted crotchet = 60

Difficulty

Level 4: Up to the C above (piece 129 of 201)

Type

Nursery rhyme

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