Row, Row, Row Your Boat Notes
Row, Row, Row Your Boat starts C C C D E, E D E F G. It climbs from middle C up to G, leaps to the C above for the four “merrily”s, then steps back down to where it started.
The notes with the words
| Words | Notes |
|---|---|
| Row, row, row your boat | C C C D E |
| Gently down the stream | E D E F G |
| Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily | C C C, G G G, E E E, C C C |
| Life is but a dream | G F E D C |
The song is a journey up and back down. The first two lines climb step by step from middle C to G. “Merrily” jumps to the high C in the third space and comes down in four groups of three, each lower than the last: C, G, E, C. The last line walks down from G to where the song began.
On the staff
These are the note lengths Trebly plays, written without bar lines. In printed music, this round is usually written in 6/8, a time signature with two main beats per measure, each made of three eighth notes. The time signatures page uses it as an example.
The six notes
The “merrily” line is a neat reading lesson on its own. Its four groups land on C, G, E and C, and three of those are landmark notes: high C in the third space, G on the clef’s line and middle C on its ledger line. E, on the bottom line, is the easy one in between.
High C is the one note here outside the range from middle C to B. It’s the third of the four spaces that spell FACE, so if you know that saying, you can name it. See treble clef spaces.
Tips for reading it
- Read the “merrily”s as four notes, not twelve. Each group is one note sung three times, so there are only four to read: C, G, E, C.
- Both Cs in the “merrily” line are C, an octave apart. The high C sounds just like middle C, only higher. Musicians call that an octave.
- Lines 1, 2 and 4 move by step, so once you’ve found the first note of each, follow the direction.
About the song
“Row, Row, Row Your Boat” is a traditional American song, first published in the 1800s. It’s best known as a round: one group starts singing, and when they reach “gently”, a second group starts from the beginning.
Play it
Press Play Row, Row, Row Your Boat at the top of this page to read it in Trebly’s Songs mode. Name each note as it arrives, and you’ll hear the tune come together. For another round, try Frère Jacques.