When Johnny Comes Marching Home

Hello and welcome back. I'm Joseph Hoffman, and today we'll be learning how to play the song "When Johnny Comes Marching Home".
A popular song composed during the American Civil War,
the song was an expression of people's longing and hope for their loved ones safe return home from fighting in the war.
Let's have a listen to "When Johnny Comes Marching Home".
Let's check out the sheet music for "When Johnny Comes Marching Home".
Today we're just learning the melody, so we just have a treble staff. We're going to be learning how to play this with right hand only,
and in a later lesson we'll learn the accompaniment part, which you can play along with a duet partner.
So we're in the treble staff.
We have a single flat. So from our ladder of fourths we know that this is either the key of F major or it could be the relative minor D minor.
Looking at our first note being a D, and the last note of the piece or song being a D,
that's a strong clue that this piece is in D minor.
Now let's check out our time signature.
Here is our time signature, which is 6/8, and remember that 6/8 really is another way of saying there'll be six
eighth note beats per measure. That 8 on the bottom stands for eighth notes.
So six eighth note beats per measure, but here's something interesting.
We have an eighth note all by itself and then a bar line.
Well that's a little unusual because we just said there should be six eighth note beats per measure.
Well in music, sometimes you have what's called a pickup beat or a pickup note.
A pickup is when you start on a beat other than 1.
Remember, we have beat 1 to help us organize our beats into strong and weak beats, and beat 1
is a strong beat,
and sometimes in a song you don't want the first syllable or word to be a strong word.
This song is all about Johnny, and so the song goes 'When Johnny comes marching home again'.
If we started on beat 1, it would be 'When Johnny', but it's 'When Johnny comes marching home'.
So, because they want the strong, or the first strong beat to come here on this eighth note,
we actually begin on beat 6, then we have a bar line, and we start this measure then on beat 1.
Again, that's called a pickup beat or pickup note.
Now at this point I'd love you to pause the video and download the sheet music from our website so you can do this next activity.
I'm going to ask you to write in the counts for this entire song.
And what I mean by that is you're going to write the beat number up above. Here's beat 6, which we already talked about,
then whenever you get to a bar line, you know the next beat is going to be beat 1. Just ignore these finger numbers for right now,
and remember every eighth note equals 1 beat now,
because it's the eighth note that we're counting. So each of these eighth notes is one beat. 6 1 2 3
Now, when you get to a quarter note, a quarter note equals 2 beats.
When there's an 8 on the bottom. So here's 4 5, and this eighth note is 6.
Now this measure we have 1 2.
This quarter note gets beats 1 and 2. This eighth note gets beat 3. This quarter note gets beats 4 and 5. This eighth note
gets beat 6.
Try to line up, as you're writing in the beats, try and line up the beat number with the note
that it corresponds with. Since this eighth note is on beat 3, they should line up together like this 4 5 6.
And then let's review this quickly.
A dotted quarter note. Do you remember how many beats that equals?
When there's an 8 on the bottom?
Because a dotted quarter note equals three eighth notes, it will also equal three eighth note beats.
So this dotted quarter note has to get beat 1 2 and 3.
A quarter rest gets 2 beats, so we get 4 and 5, and this eighth note gets beat 6.
Now, the rest of the song I'd like you to do on your own. So pause the video and in your own music, write in the counts,
and then press play when you're ready to check your answer.
Okay, here's all the beats written in in every measure.
Why don't you take a moment and check your answers that you've written in your music. Compare it to what I have here, and see how you did.
Press pause if you need extra time to check your answer, otherwise let's keep going.
And now practice tapping the rhythm together.
So, take your hand on your lap or any flat surface, and I'd like you to count the beat out loud with me
while we tap these rhythms, like this: 6 1 2 3 4 5 6, 1 2 3 4 5 6,
1 2 3 4 5 6
Okay, let's try it together. Count the beat with me.
I'll count 1 2 3 4 5, and then we'll start together on 6.
Here we go. Tap and count with me, go: 1 2 3 4 5 6, 1 2 3 4 5 6,
1 2 3 4 5 6, 1 2 3 4 5 6
Good job. Now if you need to practice that again, you can always rewind or pause to try. Otherwise, let's keep going.
Let's look at this next line.
We have 1 2 3 4 5 6 1. Okay, let's try it together.
I'll ...