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Bilingual Bedtime/German songs
BewegungsliedAction song

Hoppe, hoppe, Reiter.

Schocke, schocke, Reiter

The melody of Hoppe, hoppe, Reiter on a staff, as engraved in the book
Historische Fassung · Historical version
Download the tune

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

Verse 1

  1. Schocke, schocke, Reiter!shok-kuh, shok-kuh, rai-ter!Bounce, bounce, rider!
  2. Wenn er fällt, dann leit er.vehn air fehlt, dahn lait air.If he falls, then he lies there.
  3. Fällt er in den Graben,fehlt air in dayn grah-buhn,If he falls in the ditch,
  4. Fressen ihn die Raben,frehs-suhn een dee rah-buhn,The ravens eat him,
  5. Fällt er in den Teich,fehlt air in dayn taikh,If he falls in the pond,
  6. So findt ihn keiner gleich.zoh fint een kai-ner glaikh.Then nobody finds him straight away.

Verse 2

  1. Fällt er in den Sumpf,fehlt air in dayn zoompf,If he falls in the swamp,
  2. So sagt das Pferdchen Plump.zoh zahkt dahs pfayrt-khuhn ploomp.Then the little horse says plop.
  3. Fällt er in den grünen Klee,fehlt air in dayn grew-nuhn klay,If he falls in the green clover,
  4. Wird er wieder aufstehn.virt air vee-der owf-shtayn.He will get up again.

About this song

A knee-riding rhyme: sit the child on your knees and bounce on every beat. Support the child securely and give a small, controlled dip. The old print opens Schocke, schocke; this is the rhyme sung today as Hoppe, hoppe, Reiter. The ravens are the joke of the fall, and leit er is the old liegt er, he lies.

Where it comes from

The words: Franz Magnus Böhme, Deutsches Kinderlied und Kinderspiel (Breitkopf & Härtel, 1897), S. 81.

The tune: Böhme prints no tune for Nr. 361; the two engraved Kniereiter tunes in the cluster (Nr. 358 p. 80, Nr. 363 p. 81) carry other texts. The tune is the one German families chant, transcribed from the engraved sheet music on the Mama Lisa's World page 'Hoppe, hoppe, Reiter' (Germany), score image images/scores/hoppe_hoppe_reiter.jpg, read together with that page's MIDI midi/hopperei.mid (set by Monique Palomares), which agrees with the engraving note for note: C major, 4/4, phrase A g g a a | g2 e2 (6 notes, under a repeat), phrase B g g g g | c''2 r2 (5 notes), phrase C g f e d | c2 r2 (5 notes). Cross-checked against the score block in the 'Melodie' paragraph of the de.wikipedia article 'Kniereitvers' (the redirect target of 'Hoppe hoppe Reiter'), which prints the same opening phrase in D major as a a b b a2 fis4: scale degrees 5 5 6 6 5 3 in both. Key, metre and note values are the reference's, untouched. Verse 1 is 6, 6, 6, 6, 5, 6 syllables, so it takes A A A A B and then C with one more note, the phrase's opening g sounded twice (g g f e | d2 c2), the same descent to the tonic, spending C's bar and a half of rest on the extra syllable. Böhme's line 2 is the reference's line 2 word for word

From the book

Bilingual Bedtime

Thirty-Seven German Songs for Children

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