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Bilingual Bedtime/German songs
BewegungsliedAction song

Hopp, hopp, hopp.

The melody of Hopp, hopp, hopp on a staff, as engraved in the book
Download the tune

The melody as written on the staff, so you can learn the tune before you sing.

Verse 1

  1. Hopp, hopp, hopp!hop, hop, hop!Hop, hop, hop!
  2. Pferdchen lauf Galopppfayrt-khuhn lowf gah-loplittle horse, run at a gallop
  3. Über Stock und über Steine,ew-ber shtok oont ew-ber shtai-nuh,Over stick and over stones,
  4. Aber brich dir nicht die Beine.ah-ber brikh deer nikht dee bai-nuh.but do not break your legs.
  5. Hopp, hopp, hopp, hopp, hopp,hop, hop, hop, hop, hop,Hop, hop, hop, hop, hop,
  6. Pferdchen, lauf Galopp.pfayrt-khuhn, lowf gah-lop.little horse, run at a gallop.

Verse 2

  1. Hopp, hopp, ho!hop, hop, hoh!Hop, hop, ho!
  2. Das Pferdchen frisst kein Stroh,dahs pfayrt-khuhn frist kain shtroh,The little horse eats no straw,
  3. Muss dem Pferdchen Haber kaufen,moos daym pfayrt-khuhn hah-ber kow-fuhn,I must buy the little horse oats,
  4. Dass es kann im Trabe laufen.dahs ehs kahn im trah-buh low-fuhn.so that it can go at a trot.
  5. Hopp, hopp, ho!hop, hop, hoh!Hop, hop, ho!
  6. Das Pferdchen frisst kein Stroh.dahs pfayrt-khuhn frist kain shtroh.The little horse eats no straw.

About this song

Böhme heads it Das Steckenpferd, the hobby horse: the child gallops about astride a stick with a horse's head, or rides on your knee, faster and faster to the last line. The words go back to the schoolmaster Karl Hahn, 1808, the tune to Carl Gottlieb Hering, 1809. Haber in verse 2 is the old word for Hafer, oats.

Where it comes from

The words: Franz Magnus Böhme, Deutsches Kinderlied und Kinderspiel (Breitkopf & Härtel, 1897), S. 80.

The tune: Böhme prints no tune for Nr. 356, so the melody is Carl Gottlieb Hering's, transcribed pitch for pitch from the <score> block in the 'Text und Melodie' section of the de.wikipedia article 'Hopp, hopp, hopp, Pferdchen, lauf Galopp' (G major, 2/4). Cross-checked by eye against the composer's own first printing, Carl Gottlieb Hering, Neue praktische Singschule für Kinder nach einer leichten Lehrart, Drittes Bändchen (Fleischer, Leipzig 1809), S. 2 f., 'Steckenpferdliedchen für kleine Knaben', scan bsb10527264 at the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek: same key (one sharp), same metre, marked 'Lustig', and every one of the twelve bars agrees degree for degree. Hering detaches the opening 'Hopp's as an eighth plus an eighth rest where Wikipedia writes quarters, and sets Karl Hahn's 'Immer im Galopp,' on the five notes that Böhme's folk text fills with 'Hopp, hopp, hopp, hopp, hopp,'

From the book

Bilingual Bedtime

Thirty-Seven German Songs for Children

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