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Piano sheet music for kids · Folk song · Level 3: Notes below middle C
Red River Valley
Free beginner piano sheet music: C major, 4/4, 16 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
A slow, singing cowboy song where nearly every phrase begins before the bar line (“From this”, “we will”, “for they”) and ends on a note tied across into the next bar. The pickups start on G below middle C, so the thumb reaches down for them and comes back to C; in bars 12 and 13 the tune drops to B, A and G below middle C for “that has bright-ened”, so the hand moves down and up again. The top note is G. The left hand plays chords on C, F and G7, walking in crotchets under the long tied notes in bars 7 and 15.
Practice tip: Sing the words as you play; the long notes on “go-ing”, “smile” and “while” each last a whole bar and a beat. Find the low G before each pickup.
The words
From this valley they say you are going, we will miss your bright eyes and sweet smile, for they say you are taking the sunshine that has brightened our pathway a while.
A short history
“Red River Valley” is a North American folk song whose origins are argued over. The earliest known manuscript is marked “Nemaha 1879” and “Harlan 1885”, and the first printing was in Milwaukee in 1887. Some believe it was written in Manitoba, about the Red River of the North, during the Wolseley expedition of 1870; other versions call it “In the Bright Mohawk Valley”, a title under which James J. Kerrigan published it in New York in 1896, or “Cowboy Love Song”.
Whatever its start, by the early 1900s it had settled on the Red River between Texas and Oklahoma and become a cowboy song, printed by Carl Sandburg in The American Songbag (1927) and recorded by country singers from the 1920s on.
It gave its name to a 1936 Gene Autry film and is still one of the first songs learnt on the harmonica and the guitar.
Quick facts
- Tune
- Traditional (North American, 19th century)
- Key
- C major
- Time signature
- 4/4
- Length
- 16 bars and a pickup
- Tempo
- Gently, crotchet = 92
- Difficulty
- Level 3: Notes below middle C (piece 29 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
Questions and answers
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