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Piano sheet music for kids · Nursery rhyme · Level 6: Moving on
There Was an Old Woman Tossed Up in a Basket
Free beginner piano sheet music: C major, 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 old woman who sweeps the cobwebs from the sky, sung to the old tune Lilliburlero, as John Graham printed it in 1911. It is in 6/8 with a pickup on the G below middle C, and the first half moves in quavers (eighth notes) around C position. The second half jumps up to the C above for “Old wo-man” and has one new note, a B flat in bar 10 for “cried I”. In bars 13 to 15 several words are sung over two notes. The left hand plays a bass note and a chord on each big beat.
Practice tip: The pickup G is played with the thumb, which then jumps up to middle C for bar 1, so the hand sits in C position. Learn bars 1 to 4 well; bars 5 to 8 are almost the same, and find the B flat in bar 10 before you play the second half.
The words
There was an old woman tossed up in a basket Ninetynine times as high as the moon; What she did there I could not but ask it, For in each hand she carried a broom; Old woman, old woman, old woman, cried I, Whither, ah whither, ah whither so high? To sweep the cobwebs from the sky; And you may follow me, if you can fly.
A short history
This rhyme was sung to Lilliburlero, a tune that was famous across England in 1688, when Thomas Wharton’s mocking song with that refrain helped turn people against King James II. The tune was printed as “A New Irish Tune” under Henry Purcell’s name in 1689, and it was a dance in Playford’s The English Dancing Master by 1690. The BBC later used it for decades as the signature tune of its overseas radio service.
The nursery rhyme took over the tune and kept it. The old woman flying up with her broom “to sweep the cobwebs from the sky” was in nursery books by the 1870s: Walter Crane printed her in The Baby’s Bouquet in 1878, with a different tune.
John Graham printed the rhyme with Lilliburlero in his Traditional Nursery Rhymes (Curwen, 1911), noting that Hush-a-bye Baby was also sung to the first part of the tune.
Quick facts
- Tune
- Tune: Lilliburlero (English, 1680s); words traditional
- Key
- C major
- Time signature
- 6/8
- Length
- 16 bars and a pickup
- Tempo
- Briskly, dotted crotchet = 60
- Difficulty
- Level 6: Moving on (piece 195 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
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