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Piano sheet music for kids · Children's song · Level 6: Moving on
The Ants Go Marching
Free beginner piano sheet music: A minor, 6/8, 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
The marching tune everyone knows from “The ants go marching one by one”, which is the American Civil War song When Johnny Comes Marching Home (1863). The ants words are much newer and their author is not known, so this arrangement is printed without words. It is in A minor, the first minor-key children’s song here, with one accidental, G sharp, in bar 15. The right hand starts with the thumb on E and moves up in bars 6 to 8 and in the middle section, where the tune reaches the E an octave higher. The left hand plays a bass note and a chord on each big beat: A minor, C, G and E.
Practice tip: Find G sharp before you start, the black key just above G. March it: two big steps to every bar, and hold the long tied notes in bars 3, 4, 7 and 8 for their full length.
A short history
When Johnny Comes Marching Home was published in Boston in 1863, during the American Civil War, by the bandmaster Patrick S. Gilmore under the name Louis Lambert. Gilmore, who died in 1892, later said he had written down a tune he heard someone humming; it had already been printed earlier in 1863 as Johnny Fill Up the Bowl, and it is closely related to the Irish song Johnny, I Hardly Knew Ye. It became one of the best-known marches of the war, sung on both sides.
The tune was later borrowed for children’s songs, including “The ants go marching one by one, hurrah, hurrah”, in which each verse adds an ant and the little one stops to do something silly. The ants words came much later and their author is not known, so this page gives the tune only. The melody follows The Everyday Song Book (Chicago, 1927), where it is printed in G minor.
Quick facts
- Tune
- Words: Louis Lambert (Patrick S. Gilmore), 1863; tune traditional
- Key
- A minor
- Time signature
- 6/8
- Length
- 16 bars and a pickup
- Tempo
- Marching, dotted crotchet = 80
- Difficulty
- Level 6: Moving on (piece 198 of 201)
- Type
- Children's 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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