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Piano sheet music for kids · Nursery rhyme · Level 2: Left-hand chords
Hickory Dickory Dock
Free beginner piano sheet music: C major, 6/8, 8 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
The clock rhyme, with the tune James William Elliott wrote for it in 1870. It is in 6/8, two big beats to a bar, and it is full of rests: after “dock” in bar 2 and “clock” in bar 4 the right hand stops for four quavers while the left hand keeps the beat going, and in bars 3 and 5 the melody notes come one quaver at a time with a rest between them, like a ticking clock. The hand stays in C position, starting on E with finger 3 and reaching up to A in bar 6. The left hand plays a bass note then a chord on each big beat, moving to F in bar 6 and G7 for the run back down in bar 7.
Practice tip: Count “1 2 3 4 5 6” out loud through the rests so the mouse runs back in on time. Bars 1 and 7 are nearly the same shape: E F G F G D, then G A G F E D.
The words
Hickory, dickory, dock, the mouse ran up the clock. The clock struck one, the mouse ran down. Hickory, dickory, dock.
A short history
The rhyme was first printed around 1744 in Tommy Thumb’s Pretty Song Book, the earliest surviving collection of English nursery rhymes, as “Hickere, Dickere Dock”. It is listed as number 6489 in the Roud Folk Song Index.
Nobody knows what “hickory dickory” meant. Iona and Peter Opie, who edited the Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes, pointed out that shepherds in Westmorland once counted sheep with words like “hevera, devera, dick” for eight, nine and ten, and suggested the rhyme may have begun as a counting-out game. That is a theory, not a proven fact.
The tune everyone sings is by James William Elliott, a London organist who set this and dozens of other rhymes in his National Nursery Rhymes and Nursery Songs of 1870, with pictures by the leading engravers of the day. The clock, the mouse and the single strike of one have made it a favourite first song for learning the hours.
Quick facts
- Tune
- James William Elliott, 1870
- Words
- Traditional (English, 18th century)
- Key
- C major, C position
- Time signature
- 6/8
- Length
- 8 bars
- Tempo
- Ticking along, dotted crotchet = 66
- Difficulty
- Level 2: Left-hand chords (piece 23 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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