Does anyone else have pupils who always insist on blasting through that highly irritating Copsticks tune while you are writing during a lesson. If I got paid for everytime I heard it I could retire now! I would love to get hold of the sheet music for it, so I could teach them a different part of it before I become insane, but I have no idea how to get hold of it. Anyone know?!

Try this list.

Have you tried closing the lid of the piano whenever you stop for a long enough amount of time for them to start playing it. I've seen my piano teacher do that with some younger students who insist on fiddling.

I use my piano lid as a desk when I teach, and close it to rest the book on to write. Then no one can play as I write. And Chopsticks is banned!

That's a possibility if they do it while you are talking but I think it's quite nice when students are relaxed enough with me to play while I'm writing or if I need to leave the room for a short time. It's something I've never felt confident enough to do and it would be good if i could let myself do that now because i would warm up while my teacher was downstairs getting me a glass of water (40 minute walk to my lesson so I need it by the time I get there).

I now have Chopsticks going round and round my brain...........

Ditto!

Along with another piece mentioned a few threads up

Good Advice - I'll try that. My writing will be neater if I rest on my piano instead of my knee. Thanks!

I've heard of 'Chopsticks' but am not sure I know the tune funny enough! should I consider myself lucky?

YES!!!

Because if you did know it, you'd at this point be aware that it's 8.55am and you have no chance of having ANYTHING but Chopsticks in your head until 4.05pm.
Argle...!

I went on youtube straight after my original post and YES! I have heard it before, just did not know it was 'chopsticks' it is indeed in my head now, probably until I go to bed and I have also heard the duet they have mentioned in another thread 'heart and soul' the little boy in superman returns plays it on a steinway grand on that posh boat which belongs to the 'baddie' (what's his name now?)

Would it be terribly un-pc if I put the piano lid down WHILE they are playing Chopsticks!?
I can only apologise to everyone for ruining their day! I'll try not to mention this one again. And yes, I do have the same problem with Heart and Soul. I actually ended upn giving one 12 year old pupil a proper version of it to learn as he was driving me nuts. The amusing thing was, it was a fairly sesitive version with lots of dynamics and rubato, but he found it almost impossible to play it without swinging it!

I didn't meet any other children who were learning to play the piano until I was about thirteen. (There was no one before me when I went to my piano lesson and an adult after me).

I remember being mortified when I started secondary school and invited a new, non-piano-playing friend to my house. When I said I could play the piano she demanded I play Chopsticks - (for me that was what you ate Chinese food with). When I couldn't the friend launched into a demonstration, laughed at my approx. grade 3 level pieces and told everyone at school the next day that I claimed to play the piano but couldn't really.

For several years after that I kept trying to find someone who would teach me Chopsticks in secret - I was too ashamed to admit openly that I couldn't play it

(I quite often teach my pupils Heart & Soul, Chopsticks plus other fun stuff by rote in the early stages as then they have something they can play without having to slave over trying to read....... one pupil is actually learning Pink Panther by rote at the moment...!)

My students (and I!!!) love "winding down" with silly music like this!! Especially with pre-exam nerves looming..

**I can't help being a big kid!!**

And look where you are now! grade 8!!!! Well done! So not playing chopsticks hasn't really stopped you has it?

Some friend...

I've never been able to play chopsticks!!

No great loss, MM!

!! Thats awful!!



Nor have I - I seem to be unable to laern anything that isn't a simple melody by ear

Which of the many tacky little tunes is chopsticks? I've heard lots of different tunes referred to as chopsticks at different times by different people.

I don't think I know Chopsticks...

GGGGGG,GGGGGG,BBBBABCCCCBA,GGGGGG,GGGGGG,BBBBABC GC
FFFFFF,EEEEEE,DDDDEDCCCCDE,FFFFFF,EEEEEE,DDDDEDC FC

Sorry - the 2 lines should be spaced properly and they're not - basically intervals of 2nds, 3rds, 6ths, and octaves. Can also be played with the side of the hand like karate chop.........

That's the proper version of chopsticks, but other ones like the various black key tunes that people play have also been dubbed 'chopsticks'.

I think I should be thankful I don't know it!

I don't mind Chopsticks and I use Heart and Soul to teach basic chords - but I hate the 'black key' tunes.

My elderly mum, who couldn't tell a crotchet from a symphony, can for some mysterious reason play the "black notes" Chopsticks. I've no idea how or where she learnt it. She has no other musical skills or knowledge whatsoever.

Ahh, I know that one - was it Mozart originally?



I know two other 'chopsticks', the first opens:

cacgcfcdcacgcf

(starting on middle c, then going up and down, technically all played a semitone higher)

The second opens as follows, with one line to each hand:

Ahh, I know that one - was it Mozart originally?

actually, I think he pinched it from Salieri !

It sort of irritates me that nearly everybody refers to the black-note tune I have always known as "diddle-um-dum-dum" as "Chopsticks", whereas really it's the white note one played by the hands turned sideways so that the little fingers strike the keys as if chopping wood, as quoted by Choc. Dog.
GGGGGG GGGGGG BBBBAB CCCCBA
FFFFFF EEEEEE DDDDCD EEEEDE etc.
Variations were apparently written by Borodin and chums, and the culprit was one Euphemia Allen, a 16-year old girl, whose brother had a publishing co. Oh, and B. Bumble and the Stingers did a rock'n'roll spoof of it in the sixtys. Russ Conway did a version of "Diddle-um-dum-dum" called "Lesson One" also in the sixties, in F. I'm ashamed to say I actually bought the music!
Apparently "Heart & Soul" was a Hogey Charmichael hit. I don't see any harm in it, it gets them playing something. Not half as irritating as mindless thumping on the keys by small people!

...or big people

The black note tune is called 'Donkey's Gallop'.

Let me see if I can get this right - I think I know all three tunes but only the name of one of them before now.

Chopsticks is all choppy and goes:
"Da-da-da-da-da-da, da-da-da-da-da-da, da-da-da-da-da-da, da, da-da-da-da-"

The 'black note one' - Donkey's Gallop - is:
"Diddle-um-dum-dum, Diddle-um-dum-dum, Diddle-um-dum-um-dum-um-dum-dum"

And Heart and Soul (which I only recognised in the thread when someone said it was the one in the film Big ) is:
"Ding, ding, dee-de-de-de-de-de, Ding, ding, dee-de-de-de-de-de, Ding (high), Ding (low), de-de-de-de-de, deedle-eedle, deedle-eddle, deedle-eddle, dum"

Your teachers would have been so proud!

Hey! That's tonic doo-dah - Nat would be so proud!

I once had a note written on my door at college which said "hi - I heard you practising - what is that lovely tune that goes "dum a diddlediddle dum a diddlediddle"?













Oh come on!!!! You mean you don't recognise it?!


















It's Rachmaninoff's Prelude in G sharp minor!!! How on earth could you not all recognise that???!

oops - I thought it was "any umberellas, any umberellas to mend --- today?"

Bwahahahahahaha! SO DID I!!!!!!!!!!!

(great minds )

High five!

Ah you see, this is where it gets complicated. My mum always taught me that it was tiddle um pum pum, tiddle um pum pum, tiddle um pum pum pum pum pum pum. Maybe this was a translation from English to Scottish!

No, it's definitely BadaBoom ChaCha BadaBoom ChaCha BadaBoom Cha Boom Cha Boom ChaCha

That is for "Donkey Gallop" then! Isn't it curious how singers use La and Da or Dee sounds to demonstrate and instrumentalists use poms and diddles?

I once saw a very crude cartoon of a drumming lesson with the tutor pointing to some drawings on a chart to help the drummer but I won't go into detail here - too many young folk on this forum!!!

Pooh bear was a dab hand at tiddly poms.

The more it snows tiddly pom
the more it goes tiddly pom
the more it goes tiddly pom
on snowing

(sorry!)

So what's the other black-note one, the one where you use only your index fingers, the left plays F# every time, except the octave below, and goes,
F#A#F#G#F#D#F#C#F#A#F#G#F#D#--F#A#F#G#F#D#F#C#F#A#(low)F#G#(low)F#F#(low)--
What's that called, anyone know?