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Piano sheet music for kids · Australian · Level 5: A wider range
Brisbane Ladies
Free beginner piano sheet music: A minor, 3/4, 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 Queensland drovers’ song sung to the old sailors’ tune “Spanish Ladies”. It is in A minor, a key with no sharps or flats that sounds darker than C major, and it is a waltz in 3/4 with a one-note pickup, “Fare-”. The tune moves up and down a whole octave, from the D above middle C to the E at the top of the treble staff, so the hand has to move with it. Several words are sung over two slurred quavers (eighth notes), like “la-dies” and “mov-ing”. The left hand plays a waltz bass, a low note then two chords, through A minor, C, E minor, F and G.
Practice tip: Feel one strong beat in every bar: ONE two three. Play the slurred pairs smoothly and a little softer, then lean on the next downbeat.
The words
Farewell and adieu to you, Brisbane la dies, farewell and adieu, you maids of Toowong. We've sold all our cattle and we have to get amov ing, but we hope we shall see you again before long.
A short history
Brisbane Ladies is number 21114 in the Roud Folk Song Index. A version was printed in the Brisbane weekly the Boomerang in February 1891, and the words are credited to Saul Mendelsohn, a storekeeper at Nanango. The verses follow the road the drovers rode home after selling their cattle in Brisbane, camp by camp, from Toowong through Caboolture, Kilcoy and Nanango to Augathella Station in south-west Queensland.
The tune is “Spanish Ladies”, a British naval song in which sailors say goodbye to Spain and sail home up the English Channel. It is much older than the Queensland words: a version was copied into a ship’s logbook in 1769.
The words here are the first verse. The chorus, “We’ll rant and we’ll roar like true Queensland drovers”, is sung to the same tune.
Quick facts
- Tune
- Traditional (Australian, printed 1891; tune “Spanish Ladies”)
- Key
- A minor
- Time signature
- 3/4
- Length
- 16 bars and a pickup
- Tempo
- With a swing, crotchet = 120
- Difficulty
- Level 5: A wider range (piece 145 of 201)
- Type
- Australian
- 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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