Home › Tools › Piano Sheet Music for Kids › The Bear Went Over the Mountain
Piano sheet music for kids · Children's song · Level 2: Left-hand chords
The Bear Went Over the Mountain
Free beginner piano sheet music: C major, 6/8, 8 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 bear, in 6/8, to the tune of For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow. It starts on a pickup, “The”, on E, and the whole piece stays in C position with one stretch to A on “moun-tain to” in bar 6. The pattern is easy to see: “bear went o-ver the” is a long E and then three quavers, E, D, E, and “moun-tain” is a dotted crotchet, so there are long notes to hold and quick notes to fit in between. The last note is tied across the bar line. The left hand plays a bass note and a chord on each big beat: C, G7 and one F under the high “mountain”.
Practice tip: March in two beats to the bar: “BEAR went over the MOUN-tain”. Hold the dotted crotchet on “moun” for a whole big beat before the next “tain”.
The words
The bear went over the mountain, the bear went over the mountain, the bear went over the mountain to see what he could see.
A short history
The tune is French and about three hundred years old. “Malbrough s’en va-t-en guerre” mocks the Duke of Marlborough, who fought the French in 1709, and it became a craze in Paris in the 1780s after Marie Antoinette heard her son’s nurse singing it. Beethoven used it to stand for the French army in his Wellington’s Victory (1813). English speakers put “For he’s a jolly good fellow” to it, and American students knew it by that name by 1862.
The bear who went over the mountain to see what he could see, and saw the other side of the mountain, is an American campfire verse of unknown origin. The folklorist Don Yoder linked it to old weather lore in which an animal looks over a hill to forecast the season. Burl Ives recorded it for children in 1950, and it has been a sing-along staple ever since.
Quick facts
- Tune
- Traditional (French tune, 18th century; American words)
- Key
- C major, C position
- Time signature
- 6/8
- Length
- 8 bars and a pickup
- Tempo
- Marching, dotted crotchet = 72
- Difficulty
- Level 2: Left-hand chords (piece 25 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
What key is The Bear Went Over the Mountain in?
How long is it?
Is The Bear Went Over the Mountain out of copyright?
What is the hardest part?
Can I print it?
← More children's songs · 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.