Home › Tools › Piano Sheet Music for Kids › Simple Simon
Piano sheet music for kids · Nursery rhyme · Level 3: Notes below middle C
Simple Simon
Free beginner piano sheet music: C major, 2/2, 16 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
Simon and the pieman, with the tune Alfred Moffat printed in 1912. It is in 2/2, two minim (half note) beats to a bar. The first half sits low: start with finger 4 on middle C and the thumb on the G below, and the tune winds down to that G and back. Two rhythms are new. “Sim-ple” is a dotted crotchet (dotted quarter note) and a quaver, long-short, and “Go-ing” is the other way round, short-long, a quick quaver and a long dotted crotchet. In bars 9 to 12 the hand moves up to reach A for the pieman’s answer. The left hand plays a bass note or chord on each minim beat.
Practice tip: Clap “SIM-ple” (long-short) and “go-ING” (short-long) until you can feel the difference. Bars 1 to 4 come back three times, so learn them well first.
The words
Simple Simon met a Pieman Going to the fair; Said Simple Simon to the Pieman, Let me taste your ware. Said the Pieman unto Simon, Show me first your penny, Said Simple Simon to the Pieman, Indeed, I have not any.
A short history
Simple Simon is number 19777 in the Roud Folk Song Index. The verses sung today are the opening of a longer comic story in verse, printed as a chapbook in 1764, in which Simon also goes fishing for a whale in his mother’s pail and looks for plums growing on a thistle. A ballad about Simple Simon’s misfortunes was already in print around 1685, so the character is older still.
A pieman sold pies in the street or at fairs, and his “ware” was the goods he had for sale. Simon wants a taste first and has no money, which is the whole joke.
The tune used here is the one Alfred Moffat harmonised for Little Songs of Long Ago, published by Augener in London in 1912. James William Elliott (1870) and John Graham (1911) both printed the words with different tunes.
Quick facts
- Tune
- Traditional (English, printed 1764; tune as printed by Alfred Moffat, 1912)
- Key
- C major
- Time signature
- 2/2
- Length
- 16 bars
- Tempo
- Briskly, minim = 60
- Difficulty
- Level 3: Notes below middle C (piece 68 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 Simple Simon in?
How long is it?
Is Simple Simon 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.