I have a book of The Hums of Pooh

No 3 son came in this afternoon and said they'd been doing variations on Chopsticks in his music lesson (his last ever one at school before GCSEs and college). He then began to play 'Donkey's Gallop'. I said, 'That's not Chopsticks', and we had a right old argument.

Pity! I've got all sorts of mental pictures now!

I am sure that I know this cartoon. Was it something along the lines of

W oo W oo W W W ?

Quite possibly - PM me! I think we're thinking of the same one......



One of my pupils told me it was called "Oh can you wash your granny's shirt"..... ???? but I'm not sure if I've remembered the words correctly and/or if it was just something that someone had made up to go with the tune, or whether the words belong to the original.......

I remember that as a Peter Cook and Dudley Moore sketch.



'O can you wash you father's shirt, O can you make it clean,' and two more lines I've forgotten. My late mum would have been able to tell me.

One of my cousins used to sing and play:
O can you wash your father's shirt
O can you wash it clean?
O can you wash your father's shirt
And really get it clean?

Yes, I can wash my father's shirt
Yes, I can wash it clean.
Yes, I can wash my father's shirt
And really get it clean.

Annoying isn't it!

They worked with a single note version as follows:
FGFGEAEADBDBCcCc, some times ending with FGFGEAEADBDBCcc-

There are 18 separate pieces, all but one for piano duet. The first is itself a set of 24 variations followed by a finale, by Cui, Liadov, and Rimsky-Korsakov. The remainder are by those three, Liszt, Borodin and Shcherbachov. They include two waltzes (both requiring two against three), a minuet and a mazurka, two fugues (one on the name of BACH) a Requiem and a Carillon.* The upper ("Chopsticks") part being very simple, it is usually played by a beginner; the lower needs a good pianist.

* This is the exceptional one; it needs three players, the bottom two being experienced.

The title is "Paraphrases on the theme of Chopsticks", and the version revised and edited by Cherepnin was published by Belaieff of Bonn in 1959

This sounds to me like Chopsticks/Donkey's Gallop played on a Gamelan!!


If I were to be horrifically boring and go back on topic for a bit, I would say that, as a teacher, I would never tell a pupil to stop playing... But as a person, all those little tunes that have been mentioned are dull and boring and not to mention exceedingly irritating! If somebody measures how good a pianist you are by whether or not you can play those dreadful contributions to the melting-pot of music then they clearly know nothing at all! I have never been able to play Donkey's Gallop (Chopsticks?) and nor do I wish to be able to... As far as I can see it has no practical application and is a totally unnecessary skill!




(Oh, and my father can wash his own bl00dy shirt!!)

Chopsticks (in whatever version!) is definitely banned in my lessons!

Hi Folks,

Well, we're not all miserable. My Grandson comes to my house and plays his chopsticks, which he loves, 'cause mum wont let him play it. He will soon grow out of it. Bless him. I'll remind him of it when he is 21!

For some reason I think it is:

Oh will you wash my little shirt?
Oh will you wash it clean?
Oh will you wash my little shirt?
And hang it on the green.

No idea where that came from - the deep dark recesses of my memory somewhere...

If only our pupils could see us now! Guido D'Arrezo would be proud of us!

I always heard it was:

"I want to wash my father's shirt
I want to make it clean!
I want to wash my father's shirt
And show it to the Queen!"

Very profound!!!

After saying I never let pupils play chopsticks in their lessons, what should happen today but a little girl should arrive all excited, saying "my auntie taught me a new version of Chopsticks & I've made my own new version, too. Can I show you?"

So, of course, I had to say yes.

Aahh, you are talking my language! I have had a few students who have played this irritating piece in my lesson. I have challenged them to impress me by learning to play it in a different key. And so they did. One girl can now play it in 5 or 6 keys. What has she gained from this? She recognises the geograohy of the keyboard much more than other students who play solely from notation. I say let 'em play it! (But for heavens sake not for too long!)

Sorry , i have to disagree - I teach all these tunes, Father's shirt, chopsticks, heart & soul, whatever you want to call them, even an easy 1 hand version of Fur Elise. I love to see children's eyes light up when i suggest they learn these, and for some it is the only thing they ever do learn to play properly, because that's what they're interested in. I find them far less annoying than someone slogging tediously through a written piece of music with a spattering of wrong notes and no rhythmic sense whatsoever.

Hear! Hear! And learning by rote and ear is a valid form of learning also......... There's another one I teach them which appears in Fritz Emonts European Piano Method book 1 which he calls Dr Faustus (but I have no idea of its real name.......) which they also enjoy and helps to develop musical memory.......

I find it hard to see why a pupil would need to slog tediously through a piece of music with a spattering of wrong notes & no rhythmic sense whatsoever. It's certainly not something that happens in my lessons. It just seems to me a great pity if these tunes are the only things some children learn - my pupils certainly learn them from their friends, it just seems a waste of their piano lessons to spend time on them. And I do teach children to play by ear, improvise etc, as well as playing from music

You must have above average pupils then, who conscientiously practise every day and who have no difficulties whatsoever in learning piano - do you select them by any chance? Or are you just luckier than the rest of us?

No, I don't select them at all (and I wouldn't, even if I could) - I mostly work for large county music service in schools & music centres & have a wide range of abilities. I believe in giving all children a chance & have a high pupil retention rate. I don't believe I'm luckier than anyone else, either - I take all the pupils who are offered to me if there is room for them. I'm very happy to help the slower learners - of course, it is often a greater achievement to get some children through grade 1 than it is to get a talented pupil through grade 8 with distinction. Many of my pupils do very well in exams & festivals, but not all wish to do this & that's fine as long as there is some sort of commitment. If there's really no effort at all, I contact the parents about it. I think my colleagues in the music service & my many piano teacher friends would be largely in agreement with me.

My pupils don't all practise every day (although this is strongly encouraged) & they certainly don't all find piano easy. In fact, I spend a lot of time helping them through various difficulties & making sure they really understand. But I still don't find it necessary to slog tediously through a piece with no rhythmic sense whatsoever. If this was happening, I'd think something was wrong - do the pupils not properly understand the written rhythm, perhaps? Do they need more help going through the rhythm, clapping & singing? Or are they just not ready for the piece, yet, or have been given too much to learn in one go? If this was happening to me, I'd be looking seriously at what's going wrong.

I really must spend more time on the forums reading more threads

I chose Heart & Soul for the my solo at the Leeds concert, also a forumised version of The Way you Look Tonight, both chosen because I like the music of the 30s, and I only discovered the night before the concert that they're both the musical equivalent of B.O. How am I supposed to know these things when I'm neither a teacher nor a pianist and I hadn't read this thread! So apologies to anybody who was at the concert - I really didn't intend to annoy the h3ll out of everybody! Please will somebody do me a favour next time and enlighten me!!!

Aww Skylark!! I think theres a BIG difference between a well rehearsed performance and wandering into the music block at lunch to hear those tunes being played incessantly (And badly!), or while you are attempting to talk to a class, or even someone attempting to pass a slowed-down version of chopsticks as thier own composition!!

What's wrong with "The Way You Look Tonight"?

Thanks! I could never remember the name of that one. I knew it was something to do with washing daddy's shirt as my mum used to play it

I inherited a duet version of the chopsticks music some years ago and I have on occasion been mean and got the students to actually 'read' the music...soon puts them off