This blog is dedicated to the amateur or beginner musician with music written in a simple and easy to read Alpha Notes format and with Chords for the left hand. This is to assist those with little or hardly at all note reading skills. This is a blog that shows all the chords in Alpha Notes format too which you can find the notes for the chords in one of the blogs. Please feel free to leave a comment or any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Enjoy!
Rock o' my soul in de bosom of Abraham, Rock o' my soul in de bosom of Abraham, Rock o' my soul in de bosom of Abraham, Lord, Rock o' my soul. (King Jesus)
Alvin Ailey made "Rocka My Soul in the Bosom of Abraham" the music for the triumphant finale of his internationally known choreography Revelations, which was born out of the choreographer's "blood memories" of his childhood in rural Texas and attending the Baptist Church with his mother. It was also performed as a tribute at his 1989 funeral at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. Israeli dancer and choreographer Nadav Zelner used "Rocka My Soul in the Bosom of Abraham" as music for a clip for his student dance troupe.
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The rhyme exists in several versions. One modern example, quoted by the National Literacy Trust, has these words:
Rock a bye baby on the tree top, When the wind blows the cradle will rock, When the bough breaks the cradle will fall, And down will come baby, cradle and all.
The rhyme is believed to have first appeared in print in Mother Goose's Melody (London c. 1765), possibly published by John Newbery, and which was reprinted in Boston in 1785. No copies of the first edition are extant, but a 1791 edition has the following words:
Hush-a-by baby on the tree top, When the wind blows the cradle will rock; When the bough breaks the cradle will fall, Down tumbles baby, cradle and all.
The rhyme is followed by a note: "This may serve as a warning to the proud and ambitious, who climb so high that they generally fall at last."
James Orchard Halliwell, in his The Nursery Rhymes of England (1842), notes that the third line read "When the wind ceases the cradle will fall" in the earlier Gammer Gurton's Garland (1784) and himself records "When the bough bends" in the second line and "Down will come baby, bough, cradle and all" as the fourth.Modern versions often alter the opening words to "Rock-a-bye, baby", a phrase that was first recorded in Benjamin Tabart's Songs for the Nursery (London, 1805).
The scholars Iona and Peter Opie note that the age of the words is uncertain, and that "imaginations have been stretched to give the rhyme significance". They list a variety of claims that have been made, without endorsing any of them:
that the first line is a corruption of the French "He bas! là le loup!" (Hush! There's the wolf!)
that it was written by an English Mayflower colonist who observed the way Native American women rocked their babies in birch-bark cradles, suspended from the branches of trees
that it lampoons the British royal line in the time of James II.
In Derbyshire, England, one local legend has it that the song relates to a local character in the late 18th century, Betty Kenny (Kate Kenyon), who lived in a huge yew tree in Shining Cliff Woods in the Derwent Valley, where a hollowed-out bough served as a cradle.
A later Mormon speculation was that the words "may simply have been suggested by the swaying and soothing motion of the topmost branches of the trees, although…another authority is that Rock-a-bye baby and Bye baby bunting come to us from the Indians, as they had a custom of cradling their pappooses among the swaying branches."
The rhyme is generally sung to one of two tunes. The only one mentioned by the Opies in The Oxford Book of Nursery Rhymes (1951) is a variant of Henry Purcell's 1686 quickstepLillibullero, but others were once popular in North America.
An 1887 editorial in Boston's The Musical Herald mentions "Rock-a-bye-baby" as being part of the street band repertoire, while in that same year The Times carried an advertisement for a performance in London by the Moore and Burgess Minstrels, featuring among others "the great American song of ROCK-A-BYE". Newspapers of the period credited the tune to two separate persons, both resident in Boston. One was Effie D. Canning, who in 1872 wrote an original composition using the lullaby as a returning refrain after each of its three verses. This, however, was not published until "probably 1884" under the pseudonym Effie I. Canning. The other candidate was Charles Dupee Blake (1847-1903), a prolific composer of popular music, of which "his best known work is Rock-a-Bye Baby".
It is difficult to say which one of the many contemporary songs bearing that title and of varied authorship was really the subject of the news reports. The one reproduced under that title in Clara L. Mateaux's Through Picture Land (1876) is a two-stanza work that is different in wording and form. Another in St Nicholas Magazine for 1881 and ascribed to M. E. Wilkins begins with the words of the traditional lullaby, which are then followed by fourteen stanzas of more varied form. Still another appears in the Franklin Square Song Collection for 1885 under the title "American Cradle Song" in a version by R. J. Burdette. More lullabies followed in much the same format, including variations on the completely separate song "Rock-a-bye, baby, thy cradle is green" (Opie #23), until the ultimate transformation into Rock-a-Bye Your Baby with a Dixie Melody from the musical Sinbad of 1918.
In 1874 the sculptor Jules Dalou exhibited a terracotta statuette titled "Hush-a-bye Baby" at that year's Royal Academy exhibition. This portrayed a singing mother cradling her baby and seated in a rocking chair, with the rhyme’s first two lines quoted on the base. A commission followed in 1875 to carve the composition in marble.
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"Ring a Ring o' Roses", "Ring a Ring o' Rosie", or (in the United States) "Ring Around the Rosie", is anursery rhyme,folk songandplaygroundsinging game. Descriptions first emerge in the mid-19th century, but are reported as dating from decades before, and similar rhymes are known from across Europe, with various lyrics. It has aRoud Folk Song Indexnumber of 7925.
The origin of the song is unknown. There is no evidence for the popular 20th-century interpretation which relates it to the Great Plague, or earlier outbreaks of bubonic plague, in England.
It is unknown what the earliest wording of the rhyme was or when it began. Many versions of the game have a group of children form a ring, dance in a circle around a person, and stoop or curtsy with the final line. The slowest child to do so is faced with a penalty or becomes the "rosie" (literally: rose tree, from the French rosier) and takes their place in the center of the ring.
Common British versions include:
Ring-a-ring o' roses, A pocket full of posies. A-tishoo! A-tishoo! We all fall down!
Common American versions include:
Ring around the rosie, A pocket full of posies. Ashes! Ashes! We all fall down!
Some versions replace the third line with "Red Bird Blue Bird", "Green Grass-Yellow Grass" or substitute as ending "Sweet bread, rye bread,/ Squat!" Godey's Lady's Book (1882) explains what happens here, giving the variation as "One, two, three—squat!" Before the last line, the children stop suddenly, then exclaim it together, "suiting the action to the word with unfailing hilarity and complete satisfaction".
An Indian version ends with: "Husha busha! / We all fall down!"
Variations, corruptions, and vulgarized versions were noted to be in use long before the earliest printed publications. One such variation was dated to be in use in Connecticut in the 1840s. A novel of 1855, The Old Homestead by Ann S. Stephens, records the variation
A ring – a ring of roses, Laps full of posies; Awake – awake! Now come and make A ring – a ring of roses.
Another early record of the rhyme was in Kate Greenaway's Mother Goose; or, the Old Nursery Rhymes (1881):
Ring-a-ring-a-roses, A pocket full of posies; Hush! hush! hush! hush! We're all tumbled down.
In his Games and Songs of American Children (1883), William Wells Newell reports several variants, one of which he provides with a melody and dates to New Bedford, Massachusetts around 1790:
Ring a ring a Rosie, A bottle full of posie, All the girls in our town Ring for little Josie.
Newell writes that "[a]t the end of the words the children suddenly stoop, and the last to get down undergoes some penalty, or has to take the place of the child in the centre, who represents the 'rosie' (rose-tree; French, rosier)." A different penalty was recorded in an 1846 article from the Brooklyn Eagle describing the game named Ring o' Roses. A group of young children form a ring, from which a boy takes out a girl and kisses her.
An 1883 collection of Shropshire folk-lore includes the following version:
A ring, a ring o' roses, A pocket-full o' posies; One for Jack and one for Jim and one for little Moses! A-tisha! a-tisha! a-tisha!
On the last line "they stand and imitate sneezing". In their Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes the Opies record similar variations over time.
A German rhyme first printed in 1796 closely resembles "Ring a ring o' roses" in its first stanzaand accompanies the same actions (with sitting rather than falling as the concluding action):
Ringel ringel reihen, Wir sind der Kinder dreien, Sitzen unter'm Hollerbusch Und machen alle Husch husch husch!
Loosely translated this says: "Round about in rings / We children three/ Sit beneath an elderbush / And 'Shoo, shoo, shoo' go we!" The rhyme (as in the popular collection Des Knaben Wunderhorn) is well known in Germany and has many local variants.
Another German version runs:
Ringel, Ringel, Rosen, Schöne Aprikosen, Veilchen blau, Vergissmeinnicht, Alle Kinder setzen sich!
In translation: "A ring, a ring o' roses,/ Lovely apricots,/ Violets blue, forget-me-nots,/ Sit down, children all!"
Swiss versions have the children dancing round a rosebush. Other European singing games with a strong resemblance include "Roze, roze, meie" ("Rose, rose, May") from The Netherlands with a similar tune to "Ring a ring o' roses" and "Gira, gira rosa" ("Circle, circle, rose"), recorded in Venice in 1874, in which girls danced around the girl in the middle who skipped and curtsied as demanded by the verses and at the end kissed the one she liked best, so choosing her for the middle.
Evidence of similar children's round-dances appears in continental paintings. For example, Hans Thoma's Kinderreigen (children dancing in a ring) of 1872 takes place in an Alpine meadow, while his later version of the game has the children dancing round a tree. The Florentine Raffaello Sorbi transported the scene to the Renaissance in his 1877 Girotondo (Round-dance), in which young maidens circle a child at the center to an instrumental accompaniment.
The words to which these children danced are not referred to, but their opening is quoted by the English artists who pictured similar scenes in the 19th century. In Thomas Webster's "Ring o' Roses" of about 1850 the children dance to the music of a seated clarinetist, while in Frederick Morgan's "Ring a Ring of Roses" (the title under which it was exhibited at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in 1885) the children dance around a tree. Two other artists connected with the Newlyn School also depicted the game: Elizabeth Adela Forbes in 1880 and Harold Harvey later.
The origins and meanings of the game have long been unknown and subject to speculation. Folklore scholars regard the popular Great Plague explanation, common since the mid-20th century, as baseless.
In 1898, A Dictionary of British Folklore considered the game to be of pagan origin, based on the Sheffield Glossary comparison of Jacob Grimm's Deutsche Mythologie, relating it to pagan myths and citing a passage which reads "Gifted children of fortune have the power to laugh roses, as Freyja wept gold." It claimed the first instance to be indicative of pagan beings of light. Another suggestion is more literal, that it was making a "ring" around the roses and bowing with the "all fall down" as a curtsy. In 1892, the American writer, Eugene Field wrote a poem titled Teeny-Weeny that specifically referred to fay folk playing ring-a-rosie.
According to Games and Songs of American Children, published in 1883, the "rosie" was a reference to the French word for rose tree and the children would dance and stoop to the person in the center. Variations, especially more literal ones, were identified and noted with the literal falling down that would sever the connections to the game-rhyme. Again in 1898, sneezing was then noted to be indicative of many superstitious and supernatural beliefs across differing cultures.
Since the Second World War, the rhyme has often been associated with the Great Plague which happened in England in 1665, or with earlier outbreaks of the bubonic plague in England. Interpreters of the rhyme before World War II make no mention of this; by 1951, however, it seems to have become well established as an explanation for the form of the rhyme that had become standard in the United Kingdom. Peter and Iona Opie, the leading authorities on nursery rhymes, remarked:
The invariable sneezing and falling down in modern English versions have given would-be origin finders the opportunity to say that the rhyme dates back to the Great Plague. A rosy rash, they allege, was a symptom of the plague, and posies of herbs were carried as protection and to ward off the smell of the disease. Sneezing or coughing was a final fatal symptom, and "all fall down" was exactly what happened.
The line Ashes, Ashes in colonial versions of the rhyme is claimed to refer variously to cremation of the bodies, the burning of victims' houses, or blackening of their skin, and the theory has been adapted to be applied to other versions of the rhyme.
In its various forms, the interpretation has entered into popular culture and has been used elsewhere to make oblique reference to the plague. In 1949, a parodist composed a version alluding to radiation sickness:
In March 2020, during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom, the traditional rhyme was jokingly proposed as the "ideal choice" of song to accompany hand-washing in order to ward off infection.
Folklore scholars regard the Great Plague explanation of the rhyme as baseless:
The plague explanation did not appear until the mid-twentieth century.
The symptoms described do not fit especially well with the Great Plague.
The great variety of forms makes it unlikely that the modern form is the most ancient one, and the words on which the interpretation are based are not found in many of the earliest records of the rhyme.
European and 19th-century versions of the rhyme suggest that this "fall" was not a literal falling down, but a curtsy or other form of bending movement that was common in other dramatic singing games.
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In the early 1850s, Miller and Beacham of Baltimore published sheet music for "Pop goes the Weasel for Fun and Frolic". This is the oldest known source that pairs the name to this tune. Miller and Beacham's music was a variation of "The Haymakers", a tune dating back to the 1700s. Gow's Repository of the Dance Music of Scotland (1799 to 1820), included "The Haymakers" as country dance or jig. One modern expert believes the tune, like most jigs, originated in the 1600s.
In June 1852, the boat Pop Goes The Weasel competed in the Durham Regatta. By December 1852, "Pop Goes The Weasel" was a popular social dance in England. A ball held in Ipswich on 13 December 1852 ended with "a country dance, entitled 'Pop Goes the Weasel', one of the most mirth inspiring dances which can well be imagined."
On 24 December 1852, an ad in the Birmingham Journal offered lessons in the "Pop Goes The Weasel" dance, described as a "highly fashionable Dance, recently introduced at her Majesty's and the Nobility's private soirees". On 28 December 1852, an advertisement in The Times promoted a publication that included "the new dance recently introduced with such distinguished success at the Court balls" and contained "the original music and a full explanation of the figures by Mons. E. Coulon". Eugene Coulton was a dance-master of international renown. In January 1853, the Bath Chronicle featured an advertisement from dance master, Mr. T. B. Moutrie, for "instruction in the highly fashionable dances" including "Pop Goes the Weasel".
Sheet music dated 1853 at the British Library describes it as "An Old English Dance, as performed at Her Majesty's & The Nobilities Balls, with the Original Music". Also In 1853, American sheet music referred to it as "an old English Dance lately revived".
Originally, the dance was an instrumental jig except for the refrain "pop goes the weasel" which was sung or shouted as one pair of dancers moved under the arms of the other dancers. The British Library's 1853 tune is very similar to that used today but the only lyrics are "pop goes the weasel". The Library of Congress has similar sheet music with an arrangement by James W. Porter in 1853. Like its British counterpart, its only lyrics are "pop goes the weasel". Porter's version also describes the dance as taught at Mr. Sheldon's Academy in Philadelphia:
FIGURES: Form in Two Lines – Top Couple Ballaneez, Four Bars – then Gallop down inside and back, Four Bars – take the next Lady, Hands Round Four Bars – then Two Bars back and (while all Sing Pop goes the Weasel) pass her under your arms to her Place – Repeat with the lady's Partner then Gallop down the inside and back, Four Bars – and down outside to the other end of the line, Four Bars, which finishes the Figure – The next couple follows, &c. &c.
By 1854, Louis S. D. Rees "changed completely" the arrangement with "easy & brilliant variations". A modern music historian notes, "This bravura version introduces the theme as a jig, as in the original, but the variations are in 2/4 and 4/4, much better for showing off fast fingerwork. No dancing to this one!"
The popular dance was performed on stage and in stage and dance halls. By late 1854, lyrics were added to the well-known tune, with the first singing performance possibly at the Grecian Theatre. In 1855, The National Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor in England and Wales wrote that the song, commonly played by hand–organs on the streets, had "senseless words". In their monthly newsletter, the society referred to the song as "street music" on the level of "negro tunes", saying it was "contagious and pestilent". In another newsletter, the society wrote, "Worst of all.. almost every species of ribaldry and low wit has been rendered into rhyme to suit it."
In 1856, a letter to The Morning Post read, "For many months, everybody has been bored to death with the eternal grinding of this ditty on street." Since at least the late 19th century, the nursery rhyme was used with a British children's game similar to musical chairs. The players sing the first verse while dancing around rings. There is always one ring less than the number of players. When the "pop goes the weasel" line is reached, the players rush to secure a ring. The player that fails to secure a ring is eliminated as a "weasel". There are succeeding rounds until the winner secures the last ring.
In America, the tune became a standard in minstrel shows, featuring additional verses that frequently covered politics. Charley Twigg published his minstrel show arrangement in 1855 with the refrain "Pop goes de weasel.".
There has been much speculation about the meaning of the phrase and song title, "Pop Goes the Weasel". Some say a weasel is a tailor's flat iron, silver-plate dishes, a dead animal, a hatter's tool, or a spinner's weasel. One writer notes, "Weasels do pop their heads up when disturbed and it is quite plausible that this was the source of the name of the dance."
Just like the dancers to this jig, the spinner's weasel revolves, but to measure the thread or yarn produced on a spinning wheel. Forty revolutions of most weasels produce eighty yards (73 m) of yarn or a skein. The weasel's wooden gears are designed to make a popping sound after the 40th revolution to tell the spinner that the skein is completed.
Iona and Peter Opie observed that no one seemed to know what the phrase meant at the height of the dance craze in the 1850s. It may just be a nonsensical phrase. However, one further explanation links the lyrics of the popular nursery rhyme to the East London colloquial dialect of the 1800’s, known as “Cockney Rhyming Slang” . In this dialect “weasel” relates to “weasel and stoat”, or coat, and “pop” relates the “pop shop” or pawnbrokers shop. The rhyme describes someone running short of money purchasing rice and treacle (metaphor for life’s essentials); “that’s the way the money goes”. Subsequently, this forces them to sell (pop) their coat (weasel) to the pawnbroker (pop shop). Whilst speculative, this explanation does create a credible scenario that contextualises the peculiar phrase within a coherent narrative. Further, this would also relate the rhyme to day to day hardships of industrial Britain in a way that could be highly relatable and light hearted; running short of money and having to sell one’s coat.
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Polly Wolly Doodle"is a traditional American children's song. It was sung byDan Emmett'sVirginia Minstrels, who premiered at New York'sBowery Amphitheatrein February 1843,and is often credited to Emmett (1815–1904).
It was known to have been performed by the Yale Glee Club in 1878, and was first published in a Harvard student songbook in 1880.
The New-England Boy's Song about Thanksgiving Day",also known as "Over the River and Through the Woods",is aThanksgivingpoem byLydia Maria Child,originally published in 1844 inFlowers for Children, Volume 2.
Although many people sing "to grandmother's house we go", the author's original words were "to grandfather's house we go". Moreover, in modern American English, most people use the word woods rather than wood in reference to a forest, and sing the song accordingly.
The poem was originally published as "The New-England Boy's Song about Thanksgiving Day" in Child's Flowers for Children. It celebrates the author's childhood memories of visiting her grandfather's house (said to be the Paul Curtis House). Lydia Maria Child was a novelist, journalist, teacher, and poet who wrote extensively about the need to eliminate slavery.
The poem was eventually set to a tune by an unknown composer. The song version is sometimes presented with lines about Christmas, rather than Thanksgiving. For instance, the line "Hurrah for Thanksgiving Day!" becomes "Hurrah for Christmas Day!" As a Christmas song, it has been recorded as "A Merry Christmas at Grandmother's". Although the modern Thanksgiving holiday is not always associated with snow (snow in late November occasionally occurs in the northern states and is rare at best elsewhere in the United States), New England in the early 19th century was enduring the Little Ice Age, a colder era with earlier winters.
The original piece had twelve stanzas, though only four are typically included in the song. One stanza has the word that ends in the M sound rhyme with the word that ends in the N sound.
Over the river, and through the wood, To Grandfather's house we go; the horse knows the way to carry the sleigh through the white and drifted snow.
Over the river, and through the wood, to Grandfather's house away! We would not stop for doll or top, for 'tis Thanksgiving Day.
Over the river, and through the wood— oh, how the wind does blow! It stings the toes and bites the nose as over the ground we go.
Over the river, and through the wood— and straight through the barnyard gate, We seem to go extremely slow, it is so hard to wait!
Over the river, and through the wood— When Grandmother saw us come, She will say, "O, dear, the children are here, bring a pie for everyone."
Over the river, and through the wood— now Grandmother's cap I spy! Hurrah for the fun! Is the pudding done? Hurrah for the pumpkin pie!
The following verses appear in a "long version":
Over the river, and through the wood, with a clear blue winter sky, The dogs do bark, and children hark, as we go jingling by.
Over the river, and through the wood, to have a first-rate play. Hear the bells ring, "Ting-a-ling-ding!", Hurrah for Thanksgiving Day!
Over the river, and through the wood, no matter for winds that blow; Or if we get the sleigh upset into a bank of snow
Over the river, and through the wood, to see little John and Ann; We will kiss them all, and play snow-ball and stay as long as we can.
Over the river, and through the wood, trot fast, my dapple-gray! Spring over the ground like a hunting-hound! For 'tis Thanksgiving Day.
Over the river, and through the wood, Old Jowler hears our bells. He shakes his pow, with a loud bow-wow, and thus the news he tells.
A children's book,Over the River—A Turkey's Tale, recasts the poem as a humorous tale of a family ofturkeyson their way to a vegetarian Thanksgiving; the book was written by Derek Anderson, and published bySimon & Schusterin 2005.
It is also the title of a young adult historical fiction novel about a teenage pioneer crossing the wilderness with her young siblings in tow. The book, which features young adult heroine Caroline Darley, was written by author Brynna Williamson and was published by Stones in Clay Publishing in 2020.
Near end of the 1973 TV show A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, as the characters ride in the back of Charlie's parents' station wagon to his grandmother's house, they sing "Over the River and Through the Woods." As they finish the song, Charlie Brown says, ‘There’s one problem with that. My grandmother lives in a condominium."
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