London Bridge Is Falling Down

Background

"London Bridge Is Falling Down" is an English nursery rhyme and singing game. Its verses try one material after another to rebuild the bridge (wood and clay, bricks and mortar, iron and steel, silver and gold), each attempt fails, and every verse ends with "my fair lady". A version beginning "London Bridge is broken down" was printed in a book of children's songs in the 1740s. Who the fair lady is, and what the song remembers, has never been settled; there are many theories and no agreed answer.

In the game that goes with it, two players make an arch with their arms, and the arch drops on whoever is passing under it as the verse ends.

There has been a bridge across the Thames near this spot since Roman times. The medieval stone bridge, finished in 1209, carried houses and shops and stood for more than 600 years. Its replacement, opened in 1831, was sold in 1968 and rebuilt at Lake Havasu City in Arizona, and the bridge that stands in London today opened in 1973.

How to practise it

This arrangement is eight bars long: the tune is in the right hand, and the left hand holds one note through each bar.

For the first seven bars the tune uses only D, E, F, G and A, so put your right thumb on D rather than C. Fingers 1 to 5 then cover every note and the hand stays still until the last bar, where you play E with finger 2 and reach the thumb down to middle C.

The only tricky rhythm comes at the start of bars 1 and 5. The G is a dotted quarter note, lasting a beat and a half, and the A slips in on the "and" of beat 2. Count "1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &" aloud and clap the bar before you play it.

The left hand needs two notes: the C below middle C, and the G below that. Rest your thumb on C and finger 4 on G, so you can change note without moving the hand. G comes only in bars 3 and 7.

Putting the hands together:

1. Play the left hand alone, counting four beats on every note.
2. Play just the first note of each bar with both hands at once, then stop, all the way through.
3. Now play the whole right hand while the left hand holds. The usual slip is lifting the left hand early when the right hand gets busy.
4. Raise the speed from 60 to 76 and then to the full 92 beats a minute.

Let the first half end lightly on G in bar 4, and the second settle on middle C, like the full stop at the end of a sentence.

Playing with both hands at once is the theme of the hands-together unit.