Kid-Songs on 6 Hole Ocarina Tabs

3 Blind Mice

Tue, 07 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

About 3 Blind Mice
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Three Blind Mice is one of the oldest printed rounds in the English language. A version appears in Thomas Ravenscroft’s collection Deuteromelia, published in London in 1609, meaning people have been singing it for more than four hundred years. Like other rounds it is built for overlapping voices, and its lyrics are famously grim for a children’s song, with the farmer’s wife and her carving knife.

A Tisket a Tasket

Tue, 07 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

About A Tisket a Tasket
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A Tisket a Tasket started life as an American playground singing game. Children sat in a circle while one walked around the outside and secretly dropped a handkerchief behind someone, who then had to jump up and give chase. The nonsense opening line is just a chant to keep the game turning. Most people know it now from Ella Fitzgerald, who spun it into a swing hit in 1938 with the Chick Webb band and had a hand in writing that version; the underlying rhyme is older and anonymous.

Are You Sleeping Brother John

Tue, 07 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

About Are You Sleeping Brother John
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This is the English singing of Frere Jacques, a French round that has passed through schoolrooms for centuries. The words nudge a sleepyhead named John to wake up, because the morning bells are ringing and he is missing them; in the French original those are the matins bells that call a friar to early prayer. Like all good rounds, it is meant to be sung in overlapping parts, one voice trailing a phrase behind the next.

Baa Baa Black Sheep

Tue, 07 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

About Baa Baa Black Sheep
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Baa Baa Black Sheep is one of the oldest nursery rhymes still in everyday use. A version appears in Tommy Thumb’s Pretty Song Book, printed in London around 1744, and the little exchange between the questioner and the sheep has stayed almost unchanged since. The tune sounds familiar for a reason: it shares its melody with Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and the alphabet song, all borrowed from an old French air.

Bingo

Tue, 07 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

About Bingo
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Bingo is a spelling game as much as a song. Each time through, one more letter of the dog’s name is dropped and replaced with a clap, until the whole word is clapped rather than sung, which is exactly the memory-and-timing challenge that has kept teachers using it. The song is traditional and has been in circulation for well over two hundred years, with no single author to credit.

He's Got the Whole World

Tue, 07 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

About He’s Got the Whole World
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He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands is an African American spiritual that first appeared in print in the 1920s and has been a fixture of gospel singing and Sunday schools ever since. Its strength is repetition: the same short phrase returns with only its ending swapped, which is why young children pick it up so fast, and singers have long added their own verses naming whoever they want held safe.

Hot Cross Buns

Tue, 07 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

About Hot Cross Buns
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Hot Cross Buns began as a street seller’s cry rather than a nursery song. The spiced buns marked with a cross were sold around Lent and Good Friday, and the rhyme echoes a vendor calling the price, one a penny, two a penny. Printed versions reach back to the 1700s, though it survives today mostly as a first teaching tune.

Hush Little Baby Mockingbird

Tue, 07 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

About Hush Little Baby Mockingbird
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Hush Little Baby is a traditional lullaby from the American South, handed down by singing rather than by any printed book, so its author is unknown. The verses work like a chain, where each promised gift that fails becomes the reason for the next, and a parent can keep inventing lines for as long as it takes a child to drift off. Because it was never fixed on paper, no two families sing quite the same words.

I'm a Little Teapot

Tue, 07 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

About I’m a Little Teapot
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I’m a Little Teapot is one of the few nursery standards with a firm birthdate. It was written in 1939 by George Harold Sanders and Clarence Kelley, an American songwriting pair who wanted a simple number children could act out, tipping to one side to pour like a spout. Unlike most rhymes here, it has a known author and a copyright history rather than a foggy folk past.

If You're Happy and You Know It

Tue, 07 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

About If You’re Happy and You Know It
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If You’re Happy and You Know It is an action song: it names a small motion and then leaves a gap for everyone to do it before the line finishes. Clapping and stomping in those gaps is what makes it such a reliable way to settle a restless group of children.

Itsy Bitsy Spider

Tue, 07 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

About Itsy Bitsy Spider
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The Itsy Bitsy Spider is really a fingerplay with a tune attached. The whole point is the hand motions, fingers climbing the waterspout and then the rain washing the spider back down. It is traditional, known in Britain as the Incy Wincy Spider, and the earliest printed versions turn up in the first years of the twentieth century. The little cycle of climbing, falling and trying again is a big part of why it lands so well with small children.

Mary Had a Little Lamb (ABG)

Tue, 07 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

About Mary Had a Little Lamb (ABG)
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The words to Mary Had a Little Lamb were written by Sarah Josepha Hale and published in 1830 as a poem called Mary’s Lamb. Hale was an influential American editor, and this gentle story of a lamb trailing a girl to school may be her most quoted writing by far, even though few people know her name today.

Mary Had a Little Lamb (CDE)

Tue, 07 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

About Mary Had a Little Lamb (CDE)
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Mary Had a Little Lamb holds a small place in the history of recorded sound. When Thomas Edison tested his new phonograph in 1877, the lines he spoke into it were the opening of this very rhyme, which makes it one of the first things ever captured on a recording. The lyric itself comes from a poem written decades before that and has stayed a schoolroom fixture ever since.

My Dreidel

Tue, 07 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

About My Dreidel
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My Dreidel, sometimes called I Have a Little Dreidel, is one of the best known Hanukkah songs sung in English. It has been part of American Hanukkah celebrations since the early twentieth century, and a Yiddish version of the same idea circulated alongside it. Its exact composer is not settled, so it tends to be treated simply as a traditional holiday tune.

On Top of Ol Smokey

Tue, 07 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

About On Top of Ol Smokey
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On Top of Old Smokey is an American folk ballad with roots in the southern Appalachian mountains. Beneath the familiar tune is a rueful little story about losing a sweetheart through hesitation, and the song has drifted through countless versions over the years, including a well-loved playground parody about a meatball. It reached a wide audience in 1951, when The Weavers recorded it and carried it onto the pop charts.

Pop Goes the Weasel

Tue, 07 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

About Pop Goes the Weasel
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Pop Goes the Weasel began as an English dance and singing game in the 1850s, then quickly picked up lyrics that no one has ever fully explained. It mentions a cobbler’s bench, a monkey and the mysterious weasel, and people still argue over whether the words hide Cockney slang or are simply nonsense. Either way, the whole song is a setup for the one sudden pop everyone waits for.

Rain Rain Go Away

Tue, 07 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

About Rain Rain Go Away
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Rain Rain Go Away is about as simple as a nursery rhyme gets, just a child’s plea for the weather to clear so play can move back outside. It is an old English rhyme, and while people have attached various origin stories to it, none can really be pinned down, so it is safest to call it plainly traditional. Its short, chant-like shape is exactly what makes it stick in a young memory.

Row Row Row Your Boat

Tue, 07 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

About Row Row Row Your Boat
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Row Row Row Your Boat is an American round that first appeared in print in the middle of the nineteenth century, around 1852, with no composer’s name attached. Sung as a canon, with voices entering one after another, it is often how children first discover that a single simple line can stack up into harmony. The gentle rowing image and the closing thought that life is but a dream have kept it popular well beyond the nursery.

Snake Charmer

Tue, 07 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

About Snake Charmer
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You have heard this tune your whole life, usually as musical shorthand for something exotic or mysterious, from a snake charmer’s basket to a desert scene in an old cartoon. It is properly titled The Streets of Cairo, and it spread through the United States after the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, where a version of it accompanied a Middle Eastern sideshow. Similar melodies existed earlier, so its true authorship is tangled and much argued over.

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

Tue, 07 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

About Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
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The words to Twinkle Twinkle Little Star come from a poem called The Star, written by the English author Jane Taylor and published in 1806. The tune is older still and French in origin, and Mozart had already written a set of keyboard variations on it years before Taylor’s verse was ever attached. That shared source is why the same melody also carries the alphabet song and Baa Baa Black Sheep.

You are my Sunshine

Tue, 07 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

About You are my Sunshine
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You Are My Sunshine was published in 1939 and became a hit for Jimmie Davis, a country singer who later served two terms as governor of Louisiana. His is the name most tied to it, though who actually wrote the song has been argued about for decades. It is now one of the official state songs of Louisiana.

Kid-Songs on 6 Hole Ocarina Tabs

3 Blind Mice

About 3 Blind Mice #

A Tisket a Tasket

About A Tisket a Tasket #

Are You Sleeping Brother John

About Are You Sleeping Brother John #

Baa Baa Black Sheep

About Baa Baa Black Sheep #

Bingo

About Bingo #

He's Got the Whole World

About He’s Got the Whole World #

Hot Cross Buns

About Hot Cross Buns #

Hush Little Baby Mockingbird

About Hush Little Baby Mockingbird #

I'm a Little Teapot

About I’m a Little Teapot #

If You're Happy and You Know It

About If You’re Happy and You Know It #

Itsy Bitsy Spider

About Itsy Bitsy Spider #

Mary Had a Little Lamb (ABG)

About Mary Had a Little Lamb (ABG) #

Mary Had a Little Lamb (CDE)

About Mary Had a Little Lamb (CDE) #

My Dreidel

About My Dreidel #

On Top of Ol Smokey

About On Top of Ol Smokey #

Pop Goes the Weasel

About Pop Goes the Weasel #

Rain Rain Go Away

About Rain Rain Go Away #

Row Row Row Your Boat

About Row Row Row Your Boat #

Snake Charmer

About Snake Charmer #

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

About Twinkle Twinkle Little Star #

You are my Sunshine

About You are my Sunshine #

About 3 Blind Mice
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About A Tisket a Tasket
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About Are You Sleeping Brother John
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About Baa Baa Black Sheep
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About Bingo
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About He’s Got the Whole World
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About Hot Cross Buns
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About Hush Little Baby Mockingbird
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About I’m a Little Teapot
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About If You’re Happy and You Know It
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About Itsy Bitsy Spider
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About Mary Had a Little Lamb (ABG)
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About Mary Had a Little Lamb (CDE)
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About My Dreidel
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About On Top of Ol Smokey
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About Pop Goes the Weasel
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About Rain Rain Go Away
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About Row Row Row Your Boat
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About Snake Charmer
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About Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
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About You are my Sunshine
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