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Piano sheet music for kids · Folk song · Level 4: Up to the C above
Oh Dear, What Can the Matter Be?
Free beginner piano sheet music: C major, 6/8, 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
A girl waits for Johnny to come home from the fair, in lilting 6/8, two big beats to a bar. “Oh dear!” is answered by a run of six quavers (eighth notes), and the second half, “He prom-ised to buy me a bunch of blue rib-bons”, is quavers all the way. The right hand sits in C position with the little finger on G, reaching up to the C above for “what can the mat-ter be” and down to A and B below middle C for “John-ny’s so long at the fair”. The left hand plays a bass note and a chord on each big beat, C and G7, with F in bars 7 and 15.
Practice tip: Say the words in rhythm before you play: “prom-ised to buy me a” is six even quavers. Practise the leap from E up to C and back in bar 2.
The words
Oh dear! What can the matter be? Dear, dear! What can the matter be? Oh dear! What can the matter be? Johnny's so long at the fair. He promised to buy me a bunch of blue ribbons, he promised to buy me a bunch of blue ribbons, he promised to buy me a bunch of blue ribbons to tie up my bonnie brown hair.
A short history
Iona and Peter Opie, in the Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes, traced this song to a folk ballad written down between 1770 and 1780, in which Johnny “bydes lang at the fair” and has promised a twopenny whistle and a bunch of blue ribbons. It is number 1279 in the Roud Folk Song Index.
The tune was first printed in 1792, in a collection called The British Lyre, and two years later in a ladies’ pocket diary for 1794. By then it was already a stage favourite: the singer Samuel Harrison and the soprano Miss Cantelo sang it as a duet.
The melody was also played as a country dance tune, and the version here follows a cotillion setting printed in Boston by Elias Howe in 1844, with the traditional words.
Quick facts
- Tune
- Traditional (English, 1770s; tune printed 1792)
- Key
- C major
- Time signature
- 6/8
- Length
- 16 bars
- Tempo
- Lightly, dotted crotchet = 56
- Difficulty
- Level 4: Up to the C above (piece 142 of 201)
- Type
- Folk song
- 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
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