For He’s A Jolly Good Fellow Easy Piano Music

Here’s a piece of Easy Piano Music that’s a great choice for any young pianist. Everyone loves a popular song, and For He’s A Jolly Good Fellow is perfect for rolling out at parties and celebrations many times over!

There’s nothing like a performance opportunity to be a good incentive for practice, and you’ll find that this one always does the trick!

This arrangement is perfect for a pupil with around a year’s piano experience, but beginners would also be able to just play the right hand melody, while the teacher plays the left, as a duet.

How To Play The Easy Piano Music

• First sing the song and clap the rhythm
• Now looking at the music, identify the key signature of F major. Make sure the child is familiar with B flats and can spot where they occur in the right hand melody.
• Identify the time signature of 6/8 and explain how it divides into two dotted quarter note ( dotted crotchet) beats in the bar
• Only attempt each hand separately at first.
• Now looking at the right hand melody, ask them to look ahead in the music and spot the highest note, and the lowest note in the tune and then identify the starting note. If they find this difficult, remind them of the memory rhymes for the treble clef. Spaces: F-A-C-E and lines: E-G-B-D-F
• Ask them to sing each phrase and clap the rhythm before then attempting to play it phrase by phrase.
• Place the correct finger over the starting note and follow the suggested fingering.
• The right hand mostly stays in this five fingered position, but notice that the 5th finger has to step up one note higher to reach the D in bars  7 & 15 on ‘low,  which’ and again on ‘can de -‘  in bars 10 & 12
• Each phrase should be played several times over before attempting to move on to the next one.
• Draw attention also to the pause on the last ‘fel-low’ in bar 15.

Print ‘For He’s A Jolly Good Fellow’

• The left hand should be approached in the same way, by working out each phrase one at a time with careful attention to the fingering.
• Use the opportunity to review the lines and spaces of the bass clef, and help the child to work out the notes themselves, note by note, phrase by phrase.
• The left hand will probably require more practice, as beginners do tend to find it more difficult that the right hand.
• Draw attention to the rests and can be helpful circle these with pencil if necessary.
• Once they have mastered each hand separately, it’s then fun to play one hand each as a duet, and this also helps to process how the two hands fit together.
• When they are ready to attempt playing both hands together, once again take it slowly, phrase by phrase.
• It’s always important to keep things fun and relaxed and to follow the lead from child making sure they don’t feel stressed in any way.
• It’s much better to do a small section well than the whole page with mistakes and there’s alway next lesson!

If you enjoyed this post, check out my First Piano Lessons eBook and musical lesson plans which are full of musical games and playful activities to make music lessons fun!