Row, Row, Row Your Boat piano sheet music, with the lyrics under the notes: eight bars in C major, in 6/8, starting on three Cs. The row row row your boat lyrics and the notes line up one syllable per note, so the words are the easiest way to learn the rhythm.

| Bar | Words | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Row, row | C C |
| 2 | row your boat | C D E |
| 3 | gently down the | E D E F |
| 4 | stream | G |
| 5 | merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily | C C C G G G |
| 6 | (continued) | E E E C C C |
| 7 | life is but a | G F E D |
| 8 | dream | C |

The high Cs in bar 5 are the only notes outside the first five white keys. Everything else sits under one hand, thumb on C.


## How to play Row, Row, Row Your Boat on piano

C major, 6/8, eight bars. Count two groups of three. That is the shape you need before you play a note.

Read the key first so you know which black keys are in play. Count the meter out loud. Then look at how many bars you actually have to learn.

Work through this tutorial in the order below. Fifteen minutes a day for a week is enough to get Row, Row, Row Your Boat under your hands if each chunk is actually learned.

[Play it with the notes graded as you go](/sheet-music/easy-piano-songs-for-beginners/row-row-row-your-boat/piano.md#play-piano_row-row-row-your-boat!), no account.


## Before you start

The key is C major: no sharps and no flats. The notes are C D E F G A B. Anything outside that list in the score is an accidental. Mark it.

The time signature is 6/8: 6 beats in every bar, and an eighth note gets one beat. Count that out loud before you play, and keep counting.

The score is 8 measures long. Number them in pencil. Starting at bar 9, when you need to, is the point of the numbers.

Set a tempo you can play the hardest bar at. The easy bars will feel slow. That is correct.


## Measure by measure

Split Row, Row, Row Your Boat into chunks of 2 bars and learn one chunk per session. A chunk you can play three times without a mistake is learned. A chunk you can nearly play is not.

| Chunk | Bars | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1–2 | Right hand alone until it is automatic, then left, then together. |
| 2 | 3–4 | Same routine, then play it joined to the previous chunk. |
| 3 | 5–6 | Same routine, then play it joined to the previous chunk. |
| 4 | 7–8 | Learn it, then join it to the chunk before and play the last two together. |

Practice the last bar of one chunk and the first bar of the next as a chunk of their own. The joins are where it breaks.


## The chords that fit

Row, Row, Row Your Boat sits in C major. These are the chords that key is built from. Knowing them makes a slip easier to recover from, because you can hear where you are.

| Numeral | Chord | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| I | **C** | C E G |
| IV | **F** | F A C |
| V | **G** | G B D |
| vi | **Am** | A C E |

Play the melody in your right hand and just these chords in your left. The written left hand can wait. Hearing the harmony is the useful part.


## Hands separately, then together

Two hands on Row, Row, Row Your Boat are two problems. Solve them one at a time.

1. Right hand alone, slowly, until the chunk is clean three times.
2. Left hand alone, slowly. Give the left hand in 6/8, two dotted-quarter pulses a bar more time than it feels like it needs.
3. Hands together at half the speed you managed separately. If it falls apart, go back to the weaker hand.
4. Speed up in small steps, only from a tempo where nothing goes wrong.

If a bar still will not lock, play the right hand and tap the left-hand rhythm on the piano lid. The problem is usually the rhythm.


## Practice plan

Fifteen minutes a day for a week:

1. Day 1: the key and bars 1-2, the opening row, hands separately.
2. Day 2: chunk 1 hands together, chunk 2 hands separately.
3. Day 3: join chunks 1 and 2, then learn chunk 3.
4. Day 4: the second half, same routine.
5. Day 5: the joins, and only the joins.
6. Day 6: the whole piece, slowly, once. Mark the two bars that went worst.
7. Day 7: those two bars, then the whole piece at tempo.

[Play Row, Row, Row Your Boat in Chordzy](/sheet-music/easy-piano-songs-for-beginners/row-row-row-your-boat/piano.md#play-piano_row-row-row-your-boat!) and it will mark which notes and timings were off.


## Why this song works on piano

Seven of the eight bars use five notes, C D E F G, under one hand position: thumb on C, finger 5 on G. Bar 5 jumps to the C an octave up for "merrily" and comes back down through G and E to the thumb by bar 6.

The tune repeats itself: bars 1 and 2 are the same C three times and then a step up, and bars 7 and 8 are bar 4 run backwards. Play it twice and your fingers know where the next note is before you read it.


## Reading the sheet music

There is no key signature and no accidental in the row row row your boat sheet music. Bars 1 to 4 are quarter notes and dotted quarters. Bars 5 and 6 are twelve eighth notes in a row, three per beat. Bar 8 is one half note.

Read it as two phrases. Bars 1 to 4, then stop. Bars 5 to 8, then stop. A wrong note in bar 3 is not a reason to go back to bar 1; finish the phrase, then repeat the phrase.

Click the sheet music to play it in Chordzy, which lights each note as you play it.


## Rhythm: rocking, not rushing

6/8 has two beats a bar, each worth three eighth notes. Count "1 and a, 2 and a". In bar 1 the first C takes a whole beat, the second C takes the next beat. In bar 5 the six eighths fall one on each count.

Most people play bar 5 too fast because it has the most notes. The eighths there are the same speed as the "and a" in bar 1. Once that is steady, try the song slower, then a little faster, then staccato, then legato. Same notes, and you get to decide which version is the song.


## The round, and a left hand

Sung as a round, a second voice starts bar 1 when the first voice reaches bar 3. That works because every bar of the tune fits a C major chord: C, E and G.

The left hand can use that. Play a single C on the first beat of each bar, or hold a C major chord (C E G) for the whole bar. Either one is the complete accompaniment for this song.


## Play it in Chordzy

Chordzy grades each note as you play it, in the browser or in the app. Click the sheet music to start; no account is needed. Bar 5 is the one it will catch first.