To help people play Frog in the Well for themselves, here’s guitar tablature and sheet music:
- PDF version of Frog in the Well for printing out
- Sibelius version of Frog in the Well so you can edit, improve and hack.
Jay Fienberg tracked down a lot more info about the song:
I know this tune as “King Kong Kitchie Kitchie Ki-Me-O” by Chubby Parker & His Old Time Banjo, from Harry Smith’s Anthology Of American Folk Music. So, I was a little curious about some of the history around this tune, was poking around the web, and found that Roger McGuinn has a whole post on the history of King Kong Kitchie Kitchie Ki Me O:“King Kong Kitchie Kitchie Ki Me O” is a version of the old English song “Frog Went A-Courting.” Its first known appearance is in Wedderburn’s Complaynt of Scotland (1548) under the name “The frog came to the myl dur.” There is a reference in the London Company of Stationer’s Register of 1580 to “A Moste Strange Weddinge of the Frogge and the Mouse.” The oldest known musical version is in Thomas Ravenscroft’s Melismata in 1611.
There’s more in McGuinn’s post, including the lyrics and an mp3 of a performance of the song by McGuinn himself, I think.
For people who aren’t going to dowload the tablature, here’s a quick look at it:
6 Comments
Will Sibelius let you export the MIDI?
Here’s MIDI:
http://soupgreens.com/wp-content/uploads/frog-in-the-well.mid
I couldn’t get the repeats to work right, though, so it kind of goes *squawk* and dies at about 2/3s of the way in.
My Sibelius chops are newbie at best.
Thanks for the MIDI. I like to run midi through softsynths and then create something new. Let’s see how this one comes out!
Your point about how easy it is to repurpose MIDI is really thought provoking, since I’m working hard to make my stuff repurposable without changing the fundamental nature from acoustic to electronic music.
I’m going to do MIDI as often as possible now.
Lucas-with-hat is a completely different Lucas from Lucas-sans-hat.
Without hat I am only hatless, but with hat I am fully hatted.
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