John Hill Hewitt, Arranged by Patrick J. Burns (Grade 3, 2:10)
Go and Ask My Mother appeared in it’s original form as a comic ballad for soprano voice with sparse piano accompaniment. The lyric and music were penned my American composer John Hill Hewitt in 1848. This arrangement keeps all of Hill’s original words and melody in tact, but incorporates many other musical events and devices in order to make the piece entertaining and interesting for band musicians and audiences. This setting may be performed with or without the vocal soloist as the arrangement works very well as a novelty piece in either scenario. The lyric, however, is highly entertaining and makes a great impression in performance: