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Piano sheet music for kids · Nursery rhyme · Level 5: A wider range
The Grand Old Duke of York
Free beginner piano sheet music: C major, 2/4, 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 marching song in 2/4, with a pickup: “Oh, the” comes before the first bar line as a dotted quaver and a semiquaver. The tune lives in two places. Most of it sits up around the C above middle C, from that C up to F, with the thumb on C; but “grand old Duke of” in bar 1 drops to the G and E below, so the hand has to open out and move. Bars 5, 6, 9, 11, 13 and 14 have pairs of quick semiquavers (sixteenth notes) for words like “up to the”, “top of the” and “when they were”. The left hand marches in C, F and G7.
Practice tip: March on the spot while you say the words; the beat is on “GRAND”, “DUKE”, “YORK”, “MEN”. In bar 1 open the hand from E up to C: C with finger 5, G with 2, E with 1, G with 2, then C with 5 again in bar 2, and use the little rest there to bring the thumb back to C.
The words
Oh, the grand old Duke of York, he had ten thousand men. He marched them up to the top of the hill, and he marched them down again. And when they were up they were up, and when they were down they were down, and when they were only halfway up, they were neither up nor down.
A short history
The Grand Old Duke of York is usually said to be Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany (1763–1827), the second son of George III, who commanded the British army in Flanders in 1793 and 1794 without much success. He later reformed the army as its commander-in-chief, and his column still stands near The Mall in London.
The rhyme itself is older than that campaign. Iona and Peter Opie traced a version from 1642 about “the King of France” marching forty thousand men up a hill and down again, and the Duke of York only took over the words in the 19th century. The Roud Folk Song Index lists it as number 742.
It is an action song: children stand up on “up”, sit down on “down” and hover halfway on “half-way up”, which is why the tune repeats its notes so patiently.
Quick facts
- Tune
- Traditional (English, 19th century)
- Key
- C major
- Time signature
- 2/4
- Length
- 16 bars and a pickup
- Tempo
- Marching, crotchet = 108
- Difficulty
- Level 5: A wider range (piece 163 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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