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Piano sheet music for kids · Nursery rhyme · Level 3: Notes below middle C
Where Are You Going, My Pretty Maid?
Free beginner piano sheet music: C major, 6/8, 10 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 question-and-answer rhyme in a gentle 6/8, with the tune Alfred Moffat printed in 1912. The right hand sits in C position with the thumb on middle C, and the only note outside it is the B just below, in bars 5 and 6. The new rhythm is the dotted quaver (eighth note) and semiquaver at the start of bars 1, 3 and 5: “Where are” is long-short. In bars 6 to 8, “Sir, she said” climbs a step each time, D, E, F. The left hand plays a bass note and a chord on each big beat, C and G7, with one F chord in bar 4.
Practice tip: Say “WHERE are you GO-ing to” in a swing before you play it, so the long-short comes out naturally. In bars 6 to 8 listen for the steps climbing.
The words
Where are you going to, my pretty maid? Where are you going to, my pretty maid? I'm going amilking, Sir, she said, Sir, she said, Sir, she said, I'm going amilking, Sir, she said.
A short history
The rhyme is a little play in dialogue: a man meets a milkmaid, asks where she is going, who her father is and whether she will marry him, and is told in the last line, “Nobody asked you, sir!” James Orchard Halliwell printed it in The Nursery Rhymes of England, together with a longer country song on the same idea, “Oh, where are you going, my pretty maiden fair?”, in which she goes dabbling in the dew.
The tune here is the one Alfred Moffat harmonised for Little Songs of Long Ago (London, 1912), illustrated by Henriette Willebeek le Mair. Walter Crane’s The Baby’s Opera (1877) prints the same melody, which shows it was already the usual nursery tune by then. This arrangement gives the first verse, the milking question and answer.
Quick facts
- Tune
- Traditional (English; tune as printed by Alfred Moffat, 1912)
- Key
- C major
- Time signature
- 6/8
- Length
- 10 bars
- Tempo
- Gently, dotted crotchet = 60
- Difficulty
- Level 3: Notes below middle C (piece 103 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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