Home › Tools › Piano Sheet Music for Kids › Tom, the Piper’s Son (Over the Hills and Far Away)
Piano sheet music for kids · Nursery rhyme · Level 5: A wider range
Tom, the Piper’s Son (Over the Hills and Far Away)
Free beginner piano sheet music: C major, 4/4, 12 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
This is the other Tom the Piper’s Son rhyme, about the only tune Tom could play, “Over the hills and far away”, sung to that tune; we have left out the better-known verse about a stolen pig. It is in C major, with no sharps or flats. The thumb starts on the C above middle C, and the opening bars are pairs of quavers (eighth notes) rocking C D E D, two to a word. The hand moves: up to the high F and G, and down to the F above middle C in bar 7. The pause sign in bar 6 means hold “play” a little longer. The left hand plays a bass note and a chord in turn, oom-pah, one on each beat.
Practice tip: Play bar 1 slowly with fingers 1 2 3 2 until it rocks evenly; bars 3 and 5 are nearly the same. In bar 7 let the hand drop down for A, G, F, G, then come back up.
The words
Tom he was a piper's son, He learnt to play when he was young; But all the tune that he could play, Was Over the hills and far away. Over the hills and a great way off, The wind shall blow my topknot off!
A short history
Two rhymes about Tom were printed together in a London chapbook called Tom the Piper’s Son around 1795. The short one, number 19621 in the Roud Folk Song Index, has Tom steal a pig and get a beating. The longer one, used here, tells how all he could play was “Over the hills and far away”, and in later verses his piping makes everyone dance, even the pigs.
That verse grew out of an older song. “Jockey was a piper’s son” appears in a song of about 1698, and around 1705 the words were reworked as a recruiting song for the Duke of Marlborough’s army, called Over the Hills and Far Away. John Gay used the tune again in The Beggar’s Opera of 1728.
The tune is printed with these words in Walter Crane’s The Baby’s Opera (1877) and in Alfred Moffat’s Little Songs of Long Ago (1912), whose version is used here.
Quick facts
- Tune
- Traditional (English, tune c. 1700; words printed c. 1795)
- Key
- C major
- Time signature
- 4/4
- Length
- 12 bars
- Tempo
- Merrily, crotchet = 100
- Difficulty
- Level 5: A wider range (piece 154 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
What key is Tom, the Piper’s Son (Over the Hills and Far Away) in?
How long is it?
Is Tom, the Piper’s Son (Over the Hills and Far Away) out of copyright?
What is the hardest part?
Can I print it?
← More nursery rhymes · All 201 pieces: piano sheet music for kids
🔒 Runs entirely in your browser: nothing is uploaded and no account is needed. Once loaded, the page and the piano keep working offline.