Chopsticks on piano: who wrote it and how to play it

“Chopsticks” is the piano tune that people play with two fingers. Children teach it to each other, and no reading is needed. A British girl of 16 wrote it in 1877. This page shows how to play the first part and tells where it came from.

Quick facts

• Real title: The Celebrated Chop Waltz
• Written by: Euphemia Allen, under the name Arthur de Lulli
• Published: 1877
• Time signature: 3/4, the time of a waltz
• Played with: one finger of each hand

Why it is called Chopsticks

The name has nothing to do with eating. The printed music told the player to hold both hands on their sides, with the little fingers lowest, and to strike the keys with a chopping motion. The piece is a “chop” waltz.

How to play the first part

Use the pointer finger of each hand. The left finger plays the lower note of each pair, and the right finger plays the higher note. Both notes sound at the same moment.

Count “1, 2, 3” for each bar, and play one pair on each count.

Step	Left finger	Right finger	How many times
1	F	G	6
2	E	G	6
3	D	B	6
4	C	High C	4
5	D	B	1
6	E	A	1

Then go back to step 1.

All the keys are white. F and G sit side by side just above middle C. From there, the two fingers move apart until they are a whole octave apart on two Cs. Steps 5 and 6 walk them back in.

What the hands are doing

Step	Distance between the two notes
F and G	Next-door keys
E and G	A skip of one key
D and B	Six keys from the lower note to the higher one
C and high C	Eight keys, which is an octave

The left finger steps down one key at a time: F, E, D, C. The right finger stays on G, jumps to B, and steps up to C. Read intervals explained for kids and what is an octave?

Keep the waltz beat

A waltz has three beats in a bar, and the first beat is the strongest. Play the first pair of each bar a little louder: strong, weak, weak. For more music in three, read famous waltzes for kids to hear. Read time signatures explained.

Make it a duet

“Chopsticks” is a social tune. Two players can share the bench.

• Player 1 plays the tune in the middle of the keyboard.
• Player 2 sits on the left and plays a waltz bass: a low note on beat 1 and a chord on beats 2 and 3. Use G for steps 1 and 3, and C for steps 2 and 4.

A third player can sit on the right and copy the tune an octave higher.

Who wrote it

Euphemia Allen was 16 when “The Celebrated Chop Waltz” was published in 1877. Her brother was a music publisher. The piece came out under a man’s name, Arthur de Lulli. It became a tune that children pass along at the piano, and her name is not well known.

Russia has its own two-finger piano tune of this kind. In the 1870s, a group of Russian composers, among them Borodin and Rimsky-Korsakov, wrote a set of variations on it.

What a child learns from it

• A steady beat in three. The tune falls apart without one.
• Two hands at once. Both fingers strike together.
• The map of the white keys. The fingers move by one key at a time.

It does not teach hand shape. A teacher will ask for curved fingers in lesson pieces, and “Chopsticks” stays a game.

Things to do together

Speed game. Play it slow, then a little faster each time. Stop at the first slip.

Loud and soft. Play steps 1 and 2 loud, and steps 3 and 4 soft.

Swap sides. Trade places for the duet, so each player learns both parts.

Print and play

Print the piano keyboard chart to find the keys. For first tunes with one hand, read first piano songs for kids. For another tune that every beginner wants to play, read Für Elise for beginners.