In the old Kids' Song... How Do you Play "Knicknack"?

[astorian]

I heard the song “This Old Man” a thousand times as a little kid, and now that I have a 2 year old, I hear it constantly again. But it never occurred to me to ask when I was little…

What is “Knickknack,” and how do you play it?

And could you really play it on a drum, a gate, your knee, or a hive?

[alterego]

It’s the children as musical instruments:

@Oxford English Dictionary

3. An alternation of knacking sounds; an instrument that produces such, as the bones.
   1650 H. MORE Observ. Anima Magica (1655) 144 Some idle boy playing on a pair of Knick-knacks. 1708 Brit. Apollo No. 56. 3/1 Death-Watches perplex, With repeated knick-knacks.

[Gary_Robson]

@alterego

It’s the children as musical instruments:

So you just whack their heads together and have them open and close their mouths to change the pitch of the sound?

[Lochdale]

In Dublin, kinck-knack was the Irish version of ding-dong-ditch.

[Sage_Rat]

@Lochdale

In Dublin, kinck-knack was the Irish version of ding-dong-ditch.

What’s a ding-dong-ditch, then?

[alterego]

@Sage Rat

What’s a ding-dong-ditch, then?

@Wikipedia

Ding-Dong-Ditching is a prank where a prankster or group of pranksters will ring a doorbell and then run away with the intent of leaving the person answering the door confused - at the least. In Britain and Ireland this form of prank is known as knick-knocking.

In the US i’ve heard this called “nigger knocking.”

[MLS]

I dimly recall a silly, mindless game related to this rhyme. It was a kind of pattycake except you kept your hands closed into fists as you touched them together, against your partner’s fists, etc. Darned if I can recall the exact sequence, though.