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Piano sheet music for kids · Nursery rhyme · Level 3: Notes below middle C
Lucy Locket
Free beginner piano sheet music: C major, 2/4, 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 rhyme about a lost pocket, with the tune printed by Walter Crane in 1878 and Alfred Moffat in 1911. It is in 2/4, two beats to a bar, and moves almost all the way in even quavers (eighth notes). The tune sits around middle C, from the G below it up to F: start with finger 3 on middle C, so the thumb can reach down to G for “pock-et”. In bar 6 the hand moves up to play F, E, D, C, then comes back down for “bind-ing”. The left hand plays a bass note and a chord on each beat, oom-pah.
Practice tip: Bars 1, 3 and 5 are the same, C C D E, so learn that shape first. Keep the quavers even, like walking, and say the words in time as you play.
The words
Lucy Locket lost her pocket, Kitty Fisher found it; But ne'er a penny was there in't, Except the binding round it.
A short history
Lucy Locket is number 19536 in the Roud Folk Song Index. It was first written down by James Orchard Halliwell in 1842, though it was probably sung well before that. A pocket then was not sewn into a dress: it was a separate cloth pouch tied round the waist on a ribbon or tape and worn under the skirt, so it really could be lost and found. The binding was the tape round its edge.
Both names are older than the rhyme. John Gay called a character Lucy Lockit in The Beggar’s Opera (1728), and Kitty Fisher was a famous London beauty of the 1750s, painted by Joshua Reynolds and with dance tunes named after her. Who the girls in the rhyme were, if anyone, is not known.
The tune here is the same, note for note, in Walter Crane’s The Baby’s Bouquet (1878) and Alfred Moffat’s Our Old Nursery Rhymes (1911).
Quick facts
- Tune
- Traditional (English, printed 1842; tune as printed by Walter Crane, 1878, and Alfred Moffat, 1911)
- Key
- C major
- Time signature
- 2/4
- Length
- 8 bars
- Tempo
- Cheerfully, crotchet = 88
- Difficulty
- Level 3: Notes below middle C (piece 32 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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