Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star (arranged for beginners)

Learn this piece

Composer

Traditional (French, 18th century)

Arrangement

Musicanyya practice material

Level

Beginner

Key

C major

Metre

4/4

Tempo

92 BPM

Length

12 bars, about 1 minute

Hands

both

Trains

A very well-known stepwise-and-small-leap melody in quarter and half notes, over a single sustained bass note per bar - an easy first tune for reading two staves together.

How to practise it

• The tune leaps from C up to G in bar 1, then steps back down to C in bar 4, and bars 9-12 are that same phrase again. Loop bars 1-4 at 60 BPM before you play the whole piece.
• Bars 5-8 play one two-bar pattern twice, so once bars 5-6 are secure you also know bars 7-8.
• Your left hand plays one whole note a bar, moving between C, G and F in bars 1-4. Listen for each bass note to sound exactly with the first melody note of its bar.

Where this score came from

Arrangement for this app (CC0)

A-B-A form in 12 bars of 4/4 (three 4-bar phrases; the last repeats the first), key of C major, quarter=92. The melody was checked against a 1918 printing of the song (see the audit record). The left-hand bass note per bar is our own simple setting.

Changes from the source: Key: C major (the 1918 printing it was checked against is in F). Metre: two 2/4 bars of the 1918 printing make one 4/4 bar (note values unchanged). The plain nursery form: Mozart's K. 265 theme has D, D-E, C in bars 4 and 12, E, E, D, D in bar 6 and a trilled E-F in bar 8. Left hand: our own single bass note per bar; the printing has its own piano part.

More at this level

• Amazing Grace (arranged for beginners) Traditional (American hymn tune "New Britain")
• Lullaby (arranged for beginners) Johannes Brahms (Wiegenlied, Op. 49 No. 4)
• Waltz, Op. 39 No. 15 (theme, arranged for beginners) Johannes Brahms (Waltz in A-flat major, Op. 39 No. 15)
• Greensleeves (arranged for beginners) Traditional (English, 16th century)
• In the Hall of the Mountain King (theme, arranged for beginners) Edvard Grieg (Peer Gynt Suite No. 1, Op. 46 No. 4)