Tuesday, May 19, 2009

This Little Piggy Went to Market Barbershop Quartet song

In 1991 when I was a student at Brigham Young University, I sang with a barbershop quartet called The Minutemen. My favorite of all the songs we sang was This Little Piggy Went to Market, as sung by the Bluegrass Student Union international champion quartet.

I recently had a chance to teach This Little Piggy Went to Market to a quartet from church for a talent show. Our score was very hard to read, and the song was absent from any internet searching, so I subsequently typed the song into Melody Assistant and Musescore, rearranging some troublesome rhythms.

Here are the lyrics:

I remember many dear old love songs, rhapsodies and symphonies galore,
But a melody my mother sang to me still haunts me. How I always will adore

This little piggy went to market. This little piggy stayed home.
This little piggy had roast beef. This little piggy had none.

How I recall my dear old mother putting me to bed.
She tucked me in and said to her cute little sleepy head,

This little piggy was a bad little piggy who cried all the way home.
Years have passed, but it's still my favorite poem.

I dream and pray someday I'll say to a cute little baby of my own,
This little piggy went to market and this little piggy stayed home.

This is a Minuteman performance I put at Youtube


This is a stereo midi file that's really good for learning the parts

This is a pdf file of the written score

Note: There's a difference between the midi and the pdf in that I flipped the Tenor and the Lead on the last two measures. I believe the midi is better. The Lead should stay on the melody all the way to the end.

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