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Are You Sleeping (Frère Jacques)

Are You Sleeping (Frère Jacques)

A simple, well-known melody. A warm-up with lyrics.

🎤 Melodies
Level: Beginner
Melodic pattern
♩ 110
about 1 min

One repetition of the pattern. In the app it is transposed to your vocal range and scored note by note.

Are You Sleeping (Frère Jacques) is a public-domain round. Its four phrases are each sung twice: a walk up the first three scale degrees and back to the root, a step from the third to the fifth, a quick run from the fifth through the sixth down to the root, and finally a dip to the fourth below the root. The span is fourteen semitones, wide for a simple tune. With lyrics on screen, it's a warm-up in disguise: short consonants, long vowels.

How to do it

Sing along with the piano; the melody plays through once with the lyrics shown.
Get to the vowel quickly in every word; keep consonants short so the piano roll sees a full note.
In 'morning bells are ringing', watch the fast eighth notes on fifth, sixth, fifth, fourth; they need to be separate blocks.
On 'ding, dang, dong', drop to the note a fourth below the root, then land the last root for two beats.
One pass gives you a score; run it again if you want another try.

Coach's tip: Consonants short, vowels long.

What to watch out for

The phrase most people miss is 'morning bells': the sixth degree, the highest note, goes flat because it's short, and the run down blurs. Give the sixth a clear, light aim. 'Ding, dang, dong' is the other trap; the drop to the note a fourth below the root often lands too low and muddy. If the low notes fall below your comfortable range, raise your saved range slightly. Don't slow the tune down; the rhythm carries it. There's no reason for strain here.

Who it's for

A first melody for beginners, and a lyric-based warm-up for anyone. Sing it right after Hum on one note or Gentle 1-2-3-2-1, before scales, or as a light cool-down at the end. The next melody in difficulty is Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. It isn't in a preset program; you'll find it in the Melodies category.

Practice this exercise

Opens the app in your browser. Free, no account. Put on headphones first.