The Itsy Bitsy Spider Ukulele Tab

Composer: Traditional
Year: 1910
Key: C
Time: 6/8
Tempo: 138 BPM
Difficulty: Beginner · ★
First note: G4

The Itsy Bitsy Spider on ukulele

The full melody, rendered as four-string ukulele tab in re-entrant High-G (gCEA) you can read on screen or print for the stand — free, and never truncated.

Tuning: g C E A (re-entrant High G) · Strum: D - - D - -

Notes marked with a dot are folded up an octave to sit in the ukulele’s range — the app arranges them the same way.

Arranged for the standard re-entrant High-G (gCEA) ukulele. On Low G, Baritone or D tuning the app re-fingers the same melody live. Left-handed? The app can mirror the whole tab.

Lyrics

Bar 1 — The itsy bitsy spider climbed up the water spout

Bar 6 — Down came the rain and washed the spider out

Bar 10 — Out came the sun and dried up all the rain

Bar 13 — And the itsy bitsy spider climbed up the spout again

Trad. American, 1910 collection — public domain, simplified setting.

How to practise this on ukulele

The Itsy Bitsy Spider is in C and opens on G4. This tab is arranged for the standard re-entrant High-G ukulele: the fourth string (the top of the written tab, marked g) is tuned above the two strings under it, which is why a melody can dip onto the open g and come out sounding high — that's the instrument's signature, not a misprint. If you play Low G, the app re-fingers the same melody for your tuning live.

Pick the melody with alternating thumb and index, or the index alone on slower pieces, and keep your fretting fingers curled so open strings ring clear. Set the metronome under around 138 BPM, watch the tab rather than your hands, and loop the bar your take review grades worst until it comes back clean twice in a row. By the numbers, this setting runs 46 notes across 17 bars, from G3 up to G4 in 6/8 time.

Also playable on

The same melody is graded across 7 Playsoloist instruments. See every version, with difficulty and provenance, on the The Itsy Bitsy Spider cross-instrument hub.

guitar harmonica kalimba piano trumpet violin

Keep exploring

Free on the App Store

Play The Itsy Bitsy Spider — and hear every note graded.

Soloist Ukulele reads this four-string ukulele tab in re-entrant High-G (gCEA) under the notation and grades your take on-device, note by note — free on iPhone, no ads, no account.

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