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Piano sheet music for kids · Nursery rhyme · Level 3: Notes below middle C
Little Tommy Tucker
Free beginner piano sheet music: C major, 3/8, 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.
About this arrangement
The boy who sings for his supper, with the tune Alfred Moffat printed in 1912; Moffat’s words say “Little Tom Tucker”, and that is what is sung here. It is in 3/8, three quavers (eighth notes) to a bar, and most bars are three repeated notes or two notes and a rest. Each half starts low: the thumb plays the G below middle C three times, then the hand moves up so the thumb sits on middle C for “Tuck-er” and “cut it”. Bars 6 and 14 have a dotted quaver and a semiquaver, “give him” and “mar-ry”. The left hand plays one chord in each bar.
Practice tip: Practise the move from bar 1 to bar 2: play G G G with the thumb, then lift the hand and land the thumb on middle C. Count the rests in bars 2, 4 and 8 so the tune keeps its bounce.
The words
Little Tom Tucker Sings for his supper; What shall we give him? White bread and butter. How can he cut it Without e'er a knife? How can he marry Without e'er a wife?
A short history
Little Tommy Tucker is number 19618 in the Roud Folk Song Index. According to Iona and Peter Opie, the first four lines were printed in Tommy Thumb’s Pretty Song Book in about 1744, and the full rhyme in Mother Goose’s Melody around 1765.
To “sing for your supper”, meaning to do something in return for a meal, was already a proverb in the 1600s, and a song of about 1620 includes the line “Tom would eat meat but wants a knife”, which may be an early echo of the rhyme.
Once it was in the nursery many tunes were fitted to it. The one used here is Alfred Moffat’s, from Little Songs of Long Ago (Augener, 1912). The composer Peter Warlock set the words again in 1924.
Quick facts
- Tune
- Traditional (English, printed c. 1744; tune as printed by Alfred Moffat, 1912)
- Key
- C major
- Time signature
- 3/8
- Length
- 16 bars
- Tempo
- Bouncy, dotted crotchet = 56
- Difficulty
- Level 3: Notes below middle C (piece 105 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
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