_Ri-tum tiddy-iddy, ri-tum-tum!_
Here I must sit for an hour and strum:
Practising is good for a good little girl,
It makes her nose straight, and it makes her hair curl.
_Ri-tum tiddy-iddy, ri-tum-ti!_
Bang on the low notes and twiddle on the high.
Whether it’s a jig or the Dead March in Saul,
I sometimes often feel as if I didn’t care at all.
_Ri-tum tiddy-iddy, ri-tum-tee!_
I don’t mind the whole or the half-note, you see!
It’s the sixteenth and the quarter that confuse my mother’s daughter,
And the thirty-second, really, is too dreadful to be taught her.
_Ri-tum tiddy-iddy, ri-tum-to!_
I shall never, never, never learn the minor scale, I know.
It’s gloomier and doomier than puppy dogs a-howling,
And what’s the use of practising such melancholy yowling?
But—_ri-tum tiddy-iddy, ri-tum-tum_!
Still I work away with my drum, drum, drum.
For practising is good for a good little girl:
It makes her nose straight and it makes her hair curl.[A]
[Footnote A: This last line is not true, little girls; but it is hard,
you know, to find good reasons for practising.]