Easy Guitar Songs
The Water is Wide

Easy guitar songs that are as beautiful and well-known as The Water is Wide are true treasures. Download these free printable easy guitar songs for yourself or your students. 

This is one of those pieces of folk sheet music that it seems everyone I know sang in high school! 

Scroll down the page for the links to the free PDF sheets.

One arrangement we sang employed an echo effect, like this: "The water is wide (the water is wide), I cannot get o'er (I cannot get o'er)..." This is very pretty and not too hard. 

Something I like to do with my guitar students when reading the tablature is to hunt for all the eighth notes, by looking in the staff above.

When we spot the "fast" notes, we take a pen or pencil and "hook" the tab notes beneath together to make them look like the eighth notes in the staff.

The Dsus (D suspended) and Asus (A suspended) chords are interesting and beautiful -- quite unlike other beginner chords -- and it is usually in this song that my guitar students are first exposed to them. 

The way I have illustrated the suspended chords may be different from how you have seen them shown in other chord charts:

I tell my students that the basic root of the chord is still there, plus one finger added that will lift off when the chord "resolves" into the root chord.

That's why you see one string with two fingers on it: just build a regular D or A chord, then add your pinky (finger 4 for guitarists) to add the sound of "suspense."

The longer this chord is held, the longer the listener is waiting with expectation for the beauty of the resolution into the regular chord. 

I own two great folk song books that include this song, except the name given in both of the books is "O Waly, Waly."

Both books, Folk Songs by William Cole ("Folk Songs of England, Ireland, Scotland & Wales" edited by William Cole with music arrangements by Norman Nomath), and One Hundred English Folksongs by Cecil Sharp, have 8 verses of lyrics, of which 3 verses are almost identical to the lyrics I have used here.

The book by William Cole is especially handy, because it has simple piano accompaniments, and chord symbols for guitarists, giving you lots of easy guitar songs!

The book edited by Cecil Sharp has some wonderful songs in it, but no chord symbols, and the piano accompaniments tend toward being a bit heavy, even difficult, and maybe somewhat "Romantic" in flavor. Not so suitable for playing along with a fiddle, for example. 

The links to the easy guitar songs:

Download free guitar sheet music The Water is Wide in the key of G 

Download folk sheet music The Water is Wide for guitar in the key of D 

If you have never sung or played this English folk song before, get ready for a treat for yourself and your students. A little secret: GIRLS LOVE THIS SONG! 

---

The Adventures of Tonsta

A perfect read aloud storybook
for little boys or girls. 

The Adventures of Tonsta highlight the travels of a very young boy with a good heart, who goes about helping folk in trouble.  

With a red cap on his head and a sack of tools slung over his shoulder, Tonsta seems to meet people in distress wherever he goes.

Lots of trolls in this book.

Available at Amazon!

---

Recent Articles

• 
• 
• 

1. Home on the Range Free Guitar Tabs & Sheet Music

   

   Home on the Range, free guitar tabs are an easy way to show your guitar student how to dress up a song with secondary chords. First show them the simple version with 3 chords, then move on to the fanc…

   Read More

2. Hark the Herald Angels Sing Lyrics & Sheet Music

   

   Hark the Herald Angels Sing - an easy Middle C piano arrangement for young students still learning to read notes, and a guitar tab arrangement too!

   Read More

3. Carol of the Bells Guitar Tab

   

   Carol of the Bells guitar tab for your student who is beginning to stretch their abilities with classical or fingerstyle guitar playing. These tabs are LEGIBLE!

   Read More

4. Oh Holy Night Sheet Music for Elementary Piano

   

   Oh Holy Night sheet music for elementary piano - NOW with an EASIER secondo part that your intermediate students can play! The easy solo shares the melody between the two hands.

   Read More

5. Christmas Song Lyrics and Free Piano Sheet Music for Holly and Ivy

   

   Christmas Song Lyrics & sheet music of "The Holly and the Ivy" for your intermediate & now BEGINNING piano players: 3 energetic arrangements with flowing left hand chords and one SIMPLE Middle C arran…

   Read More

6. Gabriel's Message: The Angel Gabriel from Heaven Came

   

   Gabriel's Message: "The Angel Gabriel from heaven came" is a beautiful Christmas song that is almost unknown. It makes a lovely vocal duet. - now updated and SIMPLIFIED.

   Read More

7. Teaching Young Singers Who Have No Music Background

   

   Teaching young singers: what do you do with a non-musician who can't even read their own language, much less music notes? Here is some QUICK ADVICE!

   Read More

8. Coventry Carol, Also Known as Lully Lullay or Lully Lulla

   

   Coventry Carol, a beautiful and somber English Christmas Carol. With EASY piano duet parts for elementary and early intermediate students.

   Read More

---

Sign up for "Take Note!" to see what's new every month.

Your Email

I am at least 16 years of age.

I have read & I accept the privacy policy.

I understand you will use my info to send Music-for-Music-Teachers updates. I understand that I can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the unsubscribe link at the bottom of any email.

Subscribe to "Take Note!"

Search Music-for-Music-Teachers: