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Piano sheet music for kids · Round · Level 3: Notes below middle C
London’s Burning
Free beginner piano sheet music: C major, 3/4, 8 bars and a pickup. 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 fire round, in 3/4 with a two-quaver pickup: “Lon-don’s” comes before the first bar line and “burn-ing” lands on the beat. Each phrase is two bars and the next one starts on the last beat of the bar, which is how the four parts fit together when it is sung as a round. The tune covers a whole octave: “Lon-don’s” is the G below middle C, played with the thumb, which then hops up to C; “Fire!” is the G at the top. The left hand plays a waltz bass on C, with F under “fetch the en-gines”.
Practice tip: Practise the thumb hop, G up to C, on its own. Once the tune is steady, a second player can start it two bars later and it fits.
The words
London's burning, London's burning, fetch the engines, fetch the engines, Fire! Fire! Fire! Fire! Pour on water, pour on water.
A short history
A round about a burning city goes back to Elizabethan England: “Scotland it burneth” is written out as a round in a manuscript collection of 1580, now at King’s College, Cambridge, the oldest known. The Scottish words are thought to refer to the burning of Edinburgh by Henry VIII’s army in 1544.
The English version, “London’s Burning”, attached itself to the Great Fire of London of September 1666, which burned for days and destroyed most of the old city inside the walls, including St Paul’s Cathedral. The “engines” are the hand-pumped fire engines of the time, and “pour on water” was the only way to fight a fire.
It is sung as a round in four parts, each voice starting two bars after the one before, and it is still one of the first rounds children learn in Britain and Australia; in the United States it is usually “Scotland’s Burning”.
Quick facts
- Tune
- Traditional (English round, 16th century)
- Key
- C major
- Time signature
- 3/4
- Length
- 8 bars and a pickup
- Tempo
- Urgently, crotchet = 132
- Difficulty
- Level 3: Notes below middle C (piece 34 of 201)
- Type
- Round
- 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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