Molly Malone (Cockles and Mussels) Ukulele Tab

Composer: Traditional
Year: —
Key: C
Time: 3/4
Tempo: 116 BPM
Difficulty: Beginner · ★
First note: G4

Molly Malone (Cockles and Mussels) 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 - DU

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 — In Dublin's fair city, where the girls are so pretty

Bar 6 — I first set my eyes on sweet Molly Malone

Bar 10 — as she wheeled her wheelbarrow through streets broad and narrow

Bar 14 — crying "Cockles and mussels, alive, alive, oh!"

Bar 18 — Alive, alive, oh! Alive, alive, oh!

Bar 22 — crying "Cockles and mussels, alive, alive, oh!"

Trad. Irish, 19th c. — public domain.

How to practise this on ukulele

Molly Malone (Cockles and Mussels) 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 116 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 72 notes across 25 bars, from G3 up to G4 in 3/4 time.

Also playable on

The same melody is graded across 6 Playsoloist instruments. See every version, with difficulty and provenance, on the Molly Malone (Cockles and Mussels) cross-instrument hub.

guitar kalimba piano trumpet violin

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Free on the App Store

Play Molly Malone (Cockles and Mussels) — 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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