Would you like to learn to play the notes from the children’s song The Wheels on the Bus on the piano? Welcome to Les Roues de l’Autobus!
The Wheels on the Bus is a very popular song with toddlers, as it is both entertaining and educational.
It is often considered an anonymous folk song, having been passed down from generation to generation without a specific author being attributed to it. The song has become so famous over the years that it is now widely integrated into the popular culture of children’s songs.
The notes of this song are as simple and repetitive as the movements of the wheels on our bus! That’s why they’re perfect for piano beginners.
With the help of this article, you’ll learn The Wheels on the Bus easily on the piano. We’ll start with the notes to be played by the right hand, then the left, and finally both hands together. To help you along, you’ll even have access to video tutorials. You can also download the PDF score of the song.
Whether you’re as small as a toddler or as big as a beginner, by the end of this tutorial you’ll be ready to whirr the notes of The Wheels on the Bus across the keyboard with as much gusto as a racing engine!
Bonus : you can also learn to play this song at your own pace on our interactive piano learning app La Touche Musicale.
Free download: >> >> The guide to learn 10 easy piano pieces.
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Before we embark on our musical journey aboard this bus, let’s make a quick stop to review a few basics and familiarize ourselves with the piano keyboard. The image below shows the location of each note on the keyboard:
The name of the notes on a piano keyboard.
Fasten your seatbelts and get ready to embark on the enchanted bus’ world of musical keys!
Take a close look at the keyboard, a veritable musical dashboard. Each section of the keyboard, like a stage on our journey, is made up of 7 white keys. Each key has its own name: C, D, E, F, G, A, B. And as soon as we enter a new octave, it’s as if we’re setting off on a new musical adventure, traversing a set of 8 notes that include both the black and white keys of the keyboard.
To facilitate our navigation, the black keys stand out in front of us, like clearly marked stops on our journey. Grouped in twos and threes, they guide us through this soundscape.
If you’re looking for the note C, let the visual cues guide you: first locate a group of two black keys, then let yourself be led to the white key just to the left. That’s where C is, our reference point!
And to fully master the keyboard of this musical bus, associate each finger of your right hand with a note, starting with the thumb for C. For the left hand, follow the same procedure. For the left hand, follow the same itinerary, entrusting the thumb with the mission of discovering the C at the heart of the keyboard.
Before embarking on our journey with The Wheels on the Bus, please take the time to explore this keyboard, like a careful driver inspecting his vehicle before setting off. This preliminary exploration will make our expedition even more exciting!
So climb aboard the bus with gusto and let yourself be carried away by the childlike magic of music!
First stop! Learning the melody!
To do this, we’re going to show you the first note to play on the piano for The Wheels on the Bus, so you can spot it.
The first note is: C.
C is the first note to be played with your right hand for the song The Wheels on the Bus on piano.
You’ve passed the opening of the musical bus ?! Did you locate the C ?! Great ! Now we can move on to the list of notes to be played for the melody of this piano song. Successively press the keys on your keyboard that correspond to these notes:
C – F – F – F – F – A – C – A – F – G – G – G – E – D – C – C – F – F – F – F – A – C – A – F – G – C – F – C – F – F – F – F – A – C – A – F – G – G – G – E – D – C – C – F – F – F – F – A – C – A – F – G – C – F
Do you recognize the first echoes of the song’s melody? We advise you to repeat this sequence of notes from the melody of The Wheels on the Bus several times on the piano. It’s important to gain fluency so that you can concentrate solely on the rhythm in our video tutorial that follows.
The Wheels on the Bus on the piano: the notes of the right hand.
We’re sharing a video tutorial straight from our La Touche Musicale app! You won’t get the full functionality of the app, but the video breaks down the rhythms of the notes you’ve already seen, and the overall tempo of the famous song for toddlers.
The method is simple: just hold down the key for as long as the note on the screen is in contact with the key on the virtual keyboard!
Dive into this video to hone your right-hand technique. And don’t hold back from watching it again and again!
Well done, the bus made it around that first sharp bend without a hitch 🙂 ! You’ve mastered the right-hand piano notes of the song The Wheels on the Bus ! Now you can move on to the left-hand notes.
La Touche Musicale app waits for you to play the right note with your right hand on your piano before moving on to the next one.
Second stop! The accompanist gets on the bus! He sits right next to his friend the melody!
On the piano, the melody is usually played with the right hand, which is very dexterous. The accompaniment is played with the left hand. The melody corresponds to the pretty bodywork of our bus, and that’s what we remember! The accompaniment is represented by the engine, an indispensable cog in the wheel that enhances what we see at first glance.
As with the melody, we begin by defining the first note of the accompaniment. The first note to be played by the left hand is C.
C is the first note to be played with your left hand for the song The Wheels on the Bus on piano.
Did you get the C on the bus?! Yes! Let’s go, let’s get on with the accompaniment! You need to be able to spot all the notes easily. So press the keys on your keyboard that correspond to these notes in succession:
C – A – F – E – E – E – C – A – C – C – A – F – E – E – A – C – C – A – F – E – E – E – C – A – C – C – A – F – E – E – A – C
Repeat this sequence as many times as necessary and you’re ready to move on to the fun part of the video tutorial.
The Wheels on the Bus on the piano: the notes of the left hand.
Nothing better than a video tutorial to teach him how to play the notes of the accompaniment to the song The Wheels on the Bus on the piano with his left hand. This video takes up all the notes of the accompaniment seen above and lets you follow them more visually.
The method is the same as for the right hand. Reproduce the notes that appear on the screen and press the key for as long as the note makes contact with the video keyboard.
The La Touche Musicale app waits for you to play the correct note with your left hand on your piano before moving on to the next.
Congratulations on winning this stage! You’ve mastered left-hand note playing on the piano!
Now we’re going to play the song The Wheels on the Bus with both hands on the keyboard at the same time.
If you’re just starting out with The Wheels on the Bus and want to follow the video tutorial with both hands, here are a few concrete steps to help you along:
Follow these steps carefully, and by being patient in your practice, you’ll be able to play The Wheels on the Bus with both hands!
The Wheels on the Bus on the piano: the notes of both hands.
Last stop! Two hands on the bus!
With our tips above, you now have the tools you need to watch our video tutorial. Don’t hesitate to pause the video to reposition your fingers when you feel the need.
If you find it tedious to keep pausing the video to reposition your fingers, our La Touche Musicale app can help. It’s ultra-interactive and offers some great features, including a learning mode that advances only when you press the right keys. You’ll also be able to display the notes in their Latin version (Do, Ré, Mi, fa, Sol, La, Si) or in this version.
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The La Touche Musicale app waits for you to play the right notes with both hands on your piano before moving on to the next.
Congratulations! You’ve come a long way on our musical bus! You’ve managed to play all the notes of The Wheels on the Bus on the piano with both hands in sync!
If you’ve enjoyed this tutorial, we’d like to recommend a few others on our blog:
The road comes to an end! We’ve enjoyed accompanying you on your learning journey! We hope you will too. As mentioned at the start of this tutorial, we’ve shared the link to the free PDF sheet music for The Wheels on the Bus.
Now you can play the notes of The Wheels on the Bus on the piano wherever you are!
And don’t forget that our La Touche Musicale app is at your disposal for a learning experience that’s both fun and rewarding!
Have a good trip !
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