Row Row Row Your Boat notes: letters and easy piano sheet music

Row, Row, Row Your Boat: questions people ask

What are the letter notes of Row, Row, Row Your Boat?

The first notes, with their octave numbers, are C4 C4 C4 D4 E4 E4 D4 E4 F4 G4 C5 C5. Every note of the whole tune is in the table above, one bar per row (middle C is C4, the C nearest the middle of the keyboard; the next C up is C5).

What key and time signature is Row, Row, Row Your Boat in?

On this page it is in C major (no sharps or flats), in 6/8: six eighth notes to the bar, counted as two beats of three eighth notes (1-2-3, 4-5-6). C major has no sharps or flats, so every note is a white key. The French Wikipedia score used in the check is written in 4/4 with the three-note groups of the line “Merrily, merrily” as triplets, and the MIDI file writes the rhythm in yet another way, so the “pitch and length” column of the check table is low for both; their pitches agree with this page on every note.

Which hand plays what, and how high and low does it go?

The range is C4 to C5, 12 semitones; 3.4% of the first vocal lines in the OpenScore Lieder Corpus have a smaller range and 89.9% a larger one. The tune spans 8 letter names, from C4 to C5. A hand in one five-finger position covers five, so the hand has to shift position (or stretch) at least once; an octave is eight letter names.

Is this the whole of Row, Row, Row Your Boat?

Yes, for the tune: the 8 bars are the whole melody. The song is sung through once, or as a round for up to four voice parts, each part singing the same tune a little later. The words are not printed on this page.

Is Row, Row, Row Your Boat free to print and share?

Wikipedia says the earliest printing of the song is from 1852, with a very different tune, and that the modern tune was first recorded with the lyrics in 1881 in The Franklin Square Song Collection, so the tune is far out of copyright. The notes are read from the score printed in the English Wikipedia article (CC BY-SA 4.0), so the sheets carry that credit line and may be printed and shared under the same licence. Modern arrangements and recordings have their own rights.

How do I know the notes are right?

The melody is read by a program from Wikipedia, "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" (score 1 in the article), never typed in. A second program then compares it, note by note and in order, with 2 other sources: the French Wikipedia score (100% of its notes); MIDI file “Row Your Boat round” (100% of its notes). 2 of the 2 agree with this page on every pitch. Where they differ, the page lists every note and bar, so you can see the difference.

Is Row Row Row Your Boat a round?

Yes, it is often sung as one. Wikipedia says the most common modern version is sung as a round for up to four voice parts, and that the text is often sung several times in a row so the voices interweave in four-part harmony. This page prints the tune once; for a round, each singer or hand starts the same notes one phrase later.

Who wrote Row Row Row Your Boat?

It is not certain. Wikipedia says the earliest printing, in 1852, had very different music, and that the modern tune was first recorded with the lyrics in 1881 in The Franklin Square Song Collection, which mentions Eliphalet Oram Lyte without making clear whether he was the composer or the adapter.

Which notes does it use?

Only the white keys C, D, E, F and G, plus the C an octave above. The tune begins C4 C4 C4 D4 E4 E4 D4 E4 F4 G4 C5 C5, and the “Merrily, merrily” line is three C5 notes, three G4, three E4 and three C4 notes, a falling C major chord.