I wrote about "When You Hear a Cannon" nearly five years ago, wondering how there could be so little information online about this simple round.  I searched again recently and found nothing new.  So I decided to put up a version on YouTube and to write the sheet music.  Nothing too fancy for either effort. 

First, the video:

Second, the sheet music:

Please chime in on the comments if you know this song.

Wha Saw the 42nd sheet music

As mentioned in my last post, "Wha Saw the 42nd" has attracted more interest than any other song on this blog to date.  The variation we sing at Camp Ajawah has slightly different words and melody than what I find elsewhere online.  Most of what's available is a version for bagpipes, and the other traditional versions I have found mention nothing about singing it as a round.

So I created sheet music for Ajawah's version. We sing the song three times through, with each group starting the song two beats after the prior group.  You can sing it with any number of groups.  While the audio on my last post may not be clear enough, perhaps you can hear how it starts with "wha saw... wha saw... wha saw" as each group joins in.  And as each group finishes, the song ends with "bramble briar... bramble briar... bramble briar."

If you end up singing our version, please let me know in the comments.

More Castle

A little follow up to my last post:

1 - The original sheet music is available on UCLA's database of American Popular Music:

http://digital.library.ucla.edu/apam/librarian?VIEWPDF=SY108087PDF'

2 - The song has its origins in African American vaudeville at the turn of the century. It was part of a show called "In Dahomey" in 1900. As is often the case with summer camp songs, there is terrific information at mudcat.org. Here is the link to a discussion about "My Castle on the Nile."

http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=27210