Sing Books with Emily, the Blog

HEY DIDDLE DIDDLE, an ancient nonsense rhyme with fuzzy origins and engaging tune captures the imagination with whimsical characters doing interesting things!

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Hey Diddle Diddle Song Sheet for SBWE in D
Traditional Words and Tune
Adapted by ELEG for SBWE
To view or print this page, click here:
SBWE SBS Hey Diddle w chords in D

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Hey Diddle Diddle Song Sheet for SBWE Songbook Series (no chords)
Traditional Words and Tune
Page Coordinated by ELEG for SBWE Songbook Series
To view or print this page, click here:
SBWE SBS Hey Diddle no chords

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Hey Diddle Diddle
Traditional Words and Tune
Illustrated by Yu-Hsuan Huang
Published by Nosy Crow “Sing along with me!” Series

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HEY DIDDLE DIDDLE SING ALONG BOOK 
Traditional Mother Goose Nursery Rhyme
Book Assembled for SBWE
Illustrations by Various Artists

This book is for classroom use only.

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HEY DIDDLE DIDDLE
Illustrated by Alan Howard
From Every Child’s Book of Nursery Songs (1968) (AKA Faber Book of Nursery Songs)

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HEY DIDDLE DIDDLE
Traditional Mother Goose Nursery Rhyme
Illustrated by Milo Winter
From Childcraft, Volume 1, The Poems of Early Childhood (1954)

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HI DIDDLE DIDDLE
Traditional Mother Goose Nursery Rhyme
Illustrated by Nola Langner
From Hi Diddle Diddle (A Book of Mother Goose Rhymes)

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Hey Diddle Diddle
Traditional Rhyme and Tune
Illustrated by Moira Kemp
Favorite Mother Goose Rhymes Series by ChildsWorld

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HEY DIDDLE DIDDLE is found in almost every collection of Nursery Rhyme.  The rhyme is featured or adapted in the following illustrations:

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Hey, Diddle, Daddle
Traditional Words and Tune
Rhyme Adaptations by James Marshall
Illustrated by James Marshall

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HEY DIDDLE DIDDLE is featured in:

Hey Diddle, Diddle & Other Mother Goose Rhymes
Traditional Words and Tunes
Illustrated by Tomie dePaola

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Printed music is available in:

Wee Sing Nursery Rhymes and Lullabies
Traditional Words and Tunes
Compiled, Adapted and Arranged by Pamela Conn Beall and Susan Hagen Nipp
Illustrated by Nancy Spence Klein

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HEY DIDDLE DIDDLE for Sing Books with Emily Version 1 in Key of C

As with so many things regarding Nursery Rhymes, there are different versions almost everywhere you look! This is Sing Books with Emily’s Hey Diddle Diddle Version 1.
I will sing it also in D, but using a slightly different tune…

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Hey Diddle Diddle for SBWE  w chords in C
Traditional Words and Tune
Adapted by ELEG for SBWE
To view or print this page, click here:
Hey Diddle w chords in C for SBWE

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As always, Sesame Street comes up with a delightful version:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caRuhprYlOQ

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HEY DIDDLE DIDDLE wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hey_Diddle_Diddle

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Googling for the origins of HEY DIDDLE DIDDLE gives a long list of possible stories in which the characters in the rhyme are supposed to represent people in various historical Elizabethan, Egyptian or Greek scandals.

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A printable PDF with illustration and lyrics, here:
http://curry.virginia.edu/go/wil/Hey_diddle_diddle.pdf

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Some interesting resources and a downloadable PDF here:
http://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/74/nursery-rhymes-and-traditional-poems/5062/the-cat-and-the-fiddle-hey-diddle-diddle/

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Addendum, 8/6/2020
New Materials for HEY DIDDLE DIDDLE (and thoughts about accompaniment and making songs shorter)

When accompanying the singing on ukulele, I can’t hold a book. So I’ve moved to making sing along posters for singing with ukulele accompaniment. That still leaves the books that need accompaniment, some really great looking ones. To have backing tracks (and until I can find someone to create backing tracks for me after the wonderful My Rehearsal Pianist stopped doing this work a few years ago), I’ve begun to seek out available karaoke and instrumental recordings for a lot of rhymes. There are great ones and horrible ones you can find on old CDs, Amazon, iTunes. When I find a good one, I use the free audio editing program Audacity (thanks to Jeff T. for telling me about it) to change keys and make them shorter.

Regarding making tracks shorter, one of the best pieced of advice I ever got regarding singing or performing a song came from great Music Director Tex Arnold (who sadly died not long ago). Tex was an instructor when I attended the Cabaret Conference at Yale University in 2003.  He said, “All songs are too long.” We can use our critical thinking skills that a song does need to go on for a suitable duration to tell a satisfying story.  But especially in the case of Children’s Songs, this credo is spot on. Sing the rhyme once or twice (3 times TOPS, depending on how enjoyable it is) and move on.  I spend a lot of energy making sing along backing tracks SHORTER.

In the case of HEY DIDDLE DIDDLE, I found that my melody (which I arranged in the key of C), though similar, did not match any other instrumental melody line I could find.

So I decided to adapt! I’ve arranged a new song sheet (in the key of D) to match the backing track I had made (in this case) long ago (and which matches the melodies of backing tracks readily available from iTunes).  This way, I won’t have to keep track of numerous versions. My backing track and ukulele accompaniment song sheet will be the same.

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Hey Diddle Diddle Song Sheet for SBWE in D
Traditional Words and Tune
Adapted by ELEG for SBWE
To view or print this page, click here:
SBWE SBS Hey Diddle w chords in D

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HEY DIDDLE DIDDLE: Sing Books with Emily Sing Along Hootenanny

Traditional Words and Tune

HEY DIDDLE DIDDLE, an Illustrated Song
https://singbookswithemily.wordpress.com/2015/02/26/hey-diddle-diddle-an-illustrated-singable-nursery-rhyme/ *
This and all other sing along videos are gathered in the SING BOOKS WITH EMILY SING ALONG HOOTENANNY Playlist on Sing Books with Emily’s YouTube Channel. ‪https://bit.ly/2vZvgt6‬

To find more info and materials for Sing Books with Emily, visit the link in this post or type the song title into the search box of the Sing Books with Emily blog:o
‪http://SingBooksWithEmily.wordpress.com‬

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Addendum, 7/6/2015

It’s a simple fact that seemingly simple Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes have a lot to offer.  I’m embracing these little songs this summer and creating books for individual rhymes, so as to sing them as individual songs.

Here’s one for HEY DIDDLE DIDDLE

HEY DIDDLE DIDDLE SING ALONG BOOK 
Traditional Mother Goose Nursery Rhyme
Book Assembled for SBWE
Illustrations by Various Artists

This book is for classroom use only.

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Addendum, 4/19/2018

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Hey Diddle Diddle
Traditional Words and Tune
Illustrated by Yu-Hsuan Huang
Published by Nosy Crow “Sing along with me!” Series

This version of HEY DIDDLE DIDDLE was purchased with a kind 2017/2018 school year Teacher’s Grant from the Tuckahoe Elementary School PTA, put in for Sing Books with Emily by the Kindergarten Team. I’m so grateful!  Nosy Crow’s rendition of HEY DIDDLE DIDDLE is really cute.  For one thing, I appreciate when the characters are animals.  This allows all kids to identify with all the characters without having to encounter the barriers and feelings associated with racial and cultural identities. This Nosy Crow board book also features engaging moving parts (like a wheel you can turn to make the cow jump over the moon which also makes the carousel spin.

Nosy Crow’s webpage for this book has an embedded sing along player:
https://player.fm/series/nosy-crow-stories-aloud/sing-along-with-me-hey-diddle-diddle

HEY DIDDLE DIDDLE, as a rhyme, has been in my repertoire for some time, but it is always good for children to see rhymes represented different ways.  I’m making a conscious effort to include more rhymes in my visits with kids PreK and Kindergarten. Many studies have shown that children come to Kindergarten knowing a number of nursery rhymes by heart significantly increases the ease with which that child learns to read. And the effects continue even to more advanced elementary grades. Singing rhymes might seem like a silly, even expendable activity, but the effects it has on forming the brain of an emergent reader are profound.  Knowing rhythms tunes the ears for sounds and language.  And knowing a rhyme by heart helps a kid to start recognizing words in print that they already know in their heads.  And then young brains can use that skill to start making other connections.

This mission to include more rhymes in my repertoire is even more profound after talking to many PreK and K teachers who say that few children come to school knowing rhymes any more. This is a gap that I can help fill.  I also sing frequently at libraries and community events.  I will certainly work to share with parents and caregivers how fun and easy it is to sing these kinds of rhymes with their young ones.  One of my goals is to performs programs for people who don’t feel confident singing rhymes with their children (maybe they don’t have books or they don’t know the words or the tunes) and teach them and give them the resources to do that.  Along these lines, I’ve already begun my SING BOOKS WITH EMILY SONGBOOK SERIES. This is a series of printable song sheets linked to posts with everything I can find to help folks know about and sing the rhymes (including Sing Books with Emily embedded scratch vocal sing along SoundCloud players).

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Related Posts

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HEY DIDDLE DIDDLE, an Illustrated Song
https://singbookswithemily.wordpress.com/2015/02/26/hey-diddle-diddle-an-illustrated-singable-nursery-rhyme/

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A 2017/2018 School Year Tuckahoe Elementary School PTA Teacher’s Grant (and what I got with it)
https://singbookswithemily.wordpress.com/2018/04/17/a-tuckahoe-elementary-school-pta-teachers-grant-and-what-i-got-with-it/

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SING BOOKS WITH EMILY SONGBOOK SERIES HOST PAGE
https://singbookswithemily.wordpress.com/sbwe-song-book-series/

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SBWE Songbook Series: Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes
https://singbookswithemily.wordpress.com/2015/11/21/sing-books-with-emily-songbook-series-mother-goose-nursery-rhymes/

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MOTHER GOOSE AND NURSERY RHYMES – INDIVIDUALLY ILLUSTRATED
Mother Goose and Nursery Rhymes with Individually Illustrated Singable Picture Books
https://singbookswithemily.wordpress.com/2013/08/23/mother-goose-and-nursery-rhymes-with-individually-illustrated-singable-picture-books/

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MOTHER GOOSE AND NURSERY RHYME COMPILATIONS
A list containing compilations of Mother Goose and Nursery Rhyme Singable Picture Books, including links and resources for learning, singing, and playing the tunes
https://singbookswithemily.wordpress.com/2011/07/19/mother-goose-singable-picture-books-rhymes-and-songs-in-compilations/

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USEFUL TUNES IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN
https://singbookswithemily.wordpress.com/2012/07/15/useful-tunes-in-the-public-domain/

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NURSERY RHYMES AND MOTHER GOOSE FOR SBWE
https://singbookswithemily.wordpress.com/nursery-rhymes-and-mother-goose-for-sbwe/

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SING-ALONG RESOURCES AND PRINTABLE MATERIALS
This is the place to find Print Materials Created by Emily
https://singbookswithemily.wordpress.com/sing-along-resources-2/

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A Book for Hey Diddle Diddle
https://singbookswithemily.wordpress.com/2015/07/06/a-book-for-hey-diddle-diddle/

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HEY DIDDLE DIDDLE, a new song sheet for SBWE in Key of C
https://singbookswithemily.wordpress.com/2019/03/23/hey-diddle-diddle-a-new-song-sheet-for-sbwe-in-key-of-c/

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New Materials for HEY DIDDLE DIDDLE
https://singbookswithemily.wordpress.com/2020/08/06/new-materials-for-hey-diddle-diddle/