In this article, you will not only learn how to play Mary Had A Little Lamb on the piano, you will be able to play it in any key (if you want to).
It's a very useful and fun exercise, if you let the concepts sink in a bit.
On the other hand, if you just want to learn a quick and easy way to play the song, this article will also be for you.
OK, let's start with just the melody - we'll get to the chords in a minute.
If you sing the tune to yourself - all the way through - you may notice that the very last line - "fleece was white as snow" - ends on a nice note - "snow" - that sounds very "final.
" That usually indicates the main key of the piece, and in this case that's true.
To simplify things, let's learn to play this song in the key of C first - that's usually going to be just the white keys.
So, in the key of C, the word "snow" ends on C.
Now, moving from "snow" to "Mary" of the first line of the song, you should be able to hear a jump - that's a major third.
In this case, it's from C to E.
So, in the key of C, Mary Had A Little Lamb starts on E, which is the white key immediately to the right of the group of two black keys on the piano.
It's best to start somewhere near the middle of the full piano keyboard - just above "middle C.
" The entire song uses just 4 notes.
In the key of C, those notes are C, D, E, and G.
Starting on E, we have the melody: E D C D E E E D D D E G G E D C D E E E E D D E D C C, D and E are the white keys all next to each other, surrounding the group of two black keys.
G is two white keys above E.
Now, simply play the notes above, with each note representing a syllable in the words of the song.
So, "Ma - ry had" is played on E D C, and so on.
To make a nice left hand accompaniment to this song, we need just two chords: C major and G7.
In the left hand, move down one octave from where you're playing the melody, and work on these chords: C: C E G G7: G B D F We're going to break up these chords to play them in a rhythm for this song.
We'll count the song as "one-and-two-and-three-and-four-and" to help us with the placement of the notes.
In terms of the song, "Ma - ry had" lands on the "one-and-two," if you see what I mean.
So, the chords will be: First measure (group of 4 beats): Beat 1: C "And" of beat 1: EG Beat 2: G (below C) "And" of beat 2: EG (See how we've broken up the C major chord and simply alternate between the C and G in the bass?) Beat 3: C "And" of beat 3: EG Beat 4: G "And" of beat 4: EG Next measure: Beat 1: G "And" of beat 1: DF Beat 2: B "And" of beat 2: DF Beat 3: C "And" of beat 3: EG Beat 4: G "And" of beat 4: EG Next measure - repeat the first measure from above Last measure: Beat 1: G "And" of beat 1: DF Beat 2: B "And" of beat 2: DF Beat 3: C "And" of beat 3: EG Beat 4: EG (hold it) Now, simply work on the left and right hands separately, then work on putting them together, matching up the beats that I've indicated.
If you really want to work on this, simply notice that, in terms of scale tones (numbered with 1 on the key of the scale, then 2, 3, 4...
8 for the major scale), the melody can be thought of as: 3 2 1 2 3 3 3 2 2 2 3 5 5 3 2 1 2 3 3 3 3 2 2 3 2 1 And the chords used are simply the "I" chord (major chord corresponding to the key of the song) and the V7 chord (the dominant seven chord corresponding to the 5th above the key of the song).
There's not enough room here to complete that part of the lesson, but it's a great place for you to start out on your own (if you like).