This Old Man

This old man, he played three, he played short harp beautifully..

Welcome to the Toot Suite where junior harmonica players learn songs, check out top harmonica tips and share crazy harmonica facts that will amaze and amuse.

Here’s a tune everyone knows. It just uses three holes, but there are two jumps to learn for everything to sound right. Take your time. See how clearly you can play each note.

Purple music is for four hole harmonicas. Orange music is for ten hole harmonicas. Numbers tell you which hole to play. D means draw (breath in). B means blow (breath out).

Listen to the whole tune first. Play it a second time and try humming or singing along. Next, learn to play each chunk. Finally, put the song back together. See if you can play right through without stopping.

Here’s the whole tune. Click the green button to play.

With a knick-knack paddy-whack, give a dog a bone

Now let’s learn the chunks.

3B   2B   3B   3B   2B   3B

6B   5B   6B   6B   5B   6B

3D   3B   2D   2B   1D   2B   2D

6D   6B   5D   5B   4D   5B   5D

2B   2D   3B   1B   1B   1B   1B

5B   5D   6B   4B   4B   4B   4B

1B   1D   2B   2D   3B

4B   4D   5B   5D   6B

3B   1D   1D   2D   2B   2D   1B

6B   4D   4D   5D   5B   4D   4B

This old man came rolling home!

Well done! Now put it all together again and show your friends, family and grown ups what you can do.