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Piano sheet music for kids · Nursery rhyme · Level 3: Notes below middle C
Oranges and Lemons
Free beginner piano sheet music: C major, 3/4, 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 London bells rhyme, in 3/4. The first eight bars sit in C position with the little finger on G and the thumb on C, and “say the” is a pair of quavers. Then the hand moves: for “When will you pay me” the whole tune drops a fourth and the thumb sits on the G below middle C, with the little finger on D, so bars 9 to 16 are the same shape played lower, and the piece ends on G, waiting for the answer, just as the bells do. The left hand plays a waltz bass, one bass note and two chords, with G7 under “bells of St”, and the chords move down to G and D minor for the second half.
Practice tip: Learn bars 1 to 4 and then bars 9 to 12 side by side: they are the same tune, one with the thumb on C and one with the thumb on G. Keep the “say the” quavers light.
The words
Oranges and lemons, say the bells of St Clement's. You owe me five farthings, say the bells of St Martin's. When will you pay me? Say the bells of Old Bailey. When I grow rich, say the bells of Shoreditch.
A short history
The words were printed around 1744 in Tommy Thumb’s Pretty Song Book, the earliest surviving collection of English nursery rhymes, and name the bells of churches in and around the City of London: St Clement’s, St Martin’s, the Old Bailey, Shoreditch. The two grim final lines about the candle and the chopper are not in the early versions.
There was also a country dance called Oranges and Lemons in John Playford’s The Dancing Master from the 1650s, but it has a different tune. The one sung to the rhyme is said to imitate change-ringing, each line rising and falling like a peal of bells.
The church of St Clement Danes in the Strand has played the tune on its bells several times a day since 1920, pausing only when the church was bombed in 1941. This arrangement follows the melody printed by Alfred Moffat in Our Old Nursery Rhymes (1911).
Quick facts
- Tune
- Traditional (English, 18th century)
- Key
- C major
- Time signature
- 3/4
- Length
- 16 bars
- Tempo
- Like bells, crotchet = 120
- Difficulty
- Level 3: Notes below middle C (piece 58 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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