Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star

Background

The tune and the words grew up separately, in two different countries. The melody is French: it was printed in the 1760s as "Ah! vous dirai-je, maman", a song with quite different words. It caught on widely, and in Vienna in the early 1780s Mozart wrote twelve variations for piano on it (K. 265). They are still played by students and concert pianists alike, and they show how much a composer can build from a few plain notes.

The English words are a poem called "The Star" by Jane Taylor, published in 1806 in Rhymes for the Nursery, a book she wrote with her sister Ann. At some point in the nineteenth century the poem and the French tune were joined, and they have stayed together ever since.

The same melody also carries the alphabet song and "Baa, Baa, Black Sheep", so many children know it three times over before they ever reach a piano.

How to practise it

This version is twelve bars for the right hand: four bars of the main tune, a two-bar middle line played twice, then the main tune again. Learn the main tune first. Once you know it, you know two-thirds of the piece.

The tune needs six notes, C up to A, which is one more than a five-finger position. The neatest fix is to start with the thumb on C, use finger 4 for G and finger 5 for A. During the long G at the end of bar 2, let the hand settle so that F, E, D and C fall under fingers 4, 3, 2 and 1 for bars 3 and 4. Practise just that moment: hold the G, feel the hand relax, then play F with 4.

The middle line (G, G, F, F, E, E, D) sits in plain C position: 5, 5, 4, 4, 3, 3, 2. It has no long note to end on, only a half-note D, so count "3-4" honestly before going round again.

Step-by-step:

1. Play the jump from C to G on its own. Keep your thumb on C and simply drop finger 4 on G, looking at the distance once and then trusting it.
2. Play the main tune slowly, saying the words.
3. Add the middle line, both times.
4. Put all twelve bars together at 60 beats a minute, then 76, then the full 92.

Each pair of notes should sound like a pair: play the second note of each pair at the same strength as the first, not weaker. The half notes at the end of each line are where the tune breathes, so give them their full two beats. Last, try the whole piece softly; it is a lullaby, after all.

The landmark notes unit uses this tune for reading notes from middle C up to A.