Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star Notes
The first line of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star is C C G G A A G, F F E E D D C. It uses six notes, from middle C up to A, and moves mostly in small steps.
The notes with the words
| Words | Notes |
|---|---|
| Twinkle, twinkle, little star | C C G G A A G |
| How I wonder what you are | F F E E D D C |
That’s the part Trebly plays: the song’s famous opening. Every note is sung twice except the last one of each line, which is held for twice as long.
The second line is the first line’s way home. It starts on F, just below the G where the first line paused, and steps all the way down to middle C: F, E, D, C, two of each.
On the staff
In 4/4 time, with four beats in every measure. The letter under each note is its name.
The six notes
Two of them are landmarks worth knowing on sight:
- Middle C, on its own ledger line below the staff, where the song starts and ends. See lesson 3.
- G, on the second line, where the treble clef’s spiral curls. That’s why the treble clef is also called the G clef. See lesson 2.
The others are each one step from a landmark: A is the space just above G, F the space just below it, and D and E sit just above middle C.
Tips for reading it
- Expect the leap. After two Cs, the tune jumps up to G. Find G by the clef’s spiral rather than counting up from C.
- Read in pairs. Almost every note comes twice, so you only need to read seven different steps, not fourteen notes.
- Watch the direction in line two. Once you’ve found F, each pair is one step lower than the last, all the way down to C.
About the song
The words come from “The Star”, a poem by the English writer Jane Taylor, published in 1806. The melody is older: it’s the French folk tune “Ah! vous dirai-je, maman”, first published in 1761, on which Mozart later wrote a famous set of piano variations. The same tune is used for the Alphabet Song and “Baa, Baa, Black Sheep”, so if you know one of them, you can read all three.
Play it
Press Play Twinkle, Twinkle 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. Then try Play in time, where the notes arrive on a steady beat.