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Piano sheet music for kids · Folk song · Level 6: Moving on
The Bluebells of Scotland
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 question-and-answer song from 1800: “Oh where, and oh where, does your Highland laddie dwell?” It moves mostly in steady crotchets and minims, with a one-crotchet pickup on the G above middle C. The right hand starts high, on G and the C above it, and steps down to middle C at the end of each line, so the hand moves within every phrase. Bar 11 has the one accidental, an F sharp on “Blue”. The quick pair of quavers (eighth notes) on “your” and “I” is slurred, one word over two notes. The left hand plays a bass note and a chord in each half of the bar, through C, F, G7 and, under the F sharp, D7.
Practice tip: Play each line in two moves: start high with the thumb on G, then let the hand slide down for “High-land lad-die dwell”. Find the F sharp in bar 11 before you start.
The words
Oh where, and oh where does your Highland laddie dwell? Oh where, and oh where does your Highland laddie dwell? He dwells in merry Scotland at the sign of the Blue Bell, and it's oh, in my heart, that I love my laddie well.
A short history
“The Blue Bell of Scotland” was introduced in 1800 by the actress Dorothea Jordan, who sang it at the Drury Lane Theatre in London and was credited with writing it. It was printed as sheet music that year and the next, and it soon became one of the most popular songs in Britain. It is number 13849 in the Roud Folk Song Index. Jordan died in 1816.
The words are sung in several versions. An early one asks where the Highland laddie has gone and answers that he has gone to the wars; the verse used here, about where he dwells, “at the sign of the Blue Bell”, is the peaceful one.
Joseph Haydn arranged the song with a piano trio, and around 1900 the American trombonist Arthur Pryor turned it into a famous show-off solo for the trombone.
Quick facts
- Tune
- Dorothea Jordan, 1800
- Key
- C major
- Time signature
- 4/4
- Length
- 16 bars and a pickup
- Tempo
- Moderately, crotchet = 96
- Difficulty
- Level 6: Moving on (piece 177 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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