Für Elise, WoO 59 sheet music

How to play Für Elise, WoO 59

The full Für Elise is a tour with three stops: the famous tune, a sunny middle part with quick runs, and a stormy part over a drumming low A. Clear them one at a time and the whole map opens up.

Where your hands go

Right hand: for the tune (bars 0 to 22), thumb on A4 with fingers up to E5, and your 4th finger ready for the black key D♯5.

Left hand: it answers the tune with three quick notes rising from the bass, A2, E3, A3 in bar 2 and E2, E3, G♯3 in bar 3. Keep the hand loose so it can spread from the low note to the top one.

The piece is in 3/8: three short beats in a bar, each an eighth note. Most of the notes are sixteenths, two to a beat.

The tricky bars

Bars 13–15

The hand-off. The right hand jumps from E5 up to E6 while the left hand comes up to E5 and D♯5 to keep the shuffle going. Practise just these bars until the two hands pass the notes back and forth smoothly.

Bar 24

A tiny flourish of very quick notes at the end of the bar leads into the middle part. Start it late and light rather than early and heavy.

Bar 27

Six sixteenths falling from A5 to C5 in the right hand while the left hand rocks between E4 and a chord of F3, G3 and B♭3.

Bars 32–35

The 32nd-note runs. In bar 32 every other note is G5, so the hand pivots around that one key while the other notes climb C5, G4, A4, B4, C5, D5.

Bars 36–38

Quick E5, D♯5 turns slide back into the tune. Keep them even and quiet.

Bars 61–69

The stormy part. The left hand keeps repeating A2, six times a bar, with a lower note joining it in bars 66 to 68, while the right hand plays chords, including the four-note chord E4, G4, B♭4, C♯5 in bar 62.

Bars 79–81

Fast broken chords climbing from A3 to E5 in the right hand. Group them in threes and aim for the top note.

Bars 82–83

A falling chromatic scale, every key black and white, from B♭6 down to F5. Learn the fingering slowly; this is the part people trip on.

Your practice plan

1. Week one: only the tune, bars 0 to 22. It comes back three times, so it pays off three times.
2. Learn bars 13 to 15 as a game of catch between the hands, very slowly.
3. Week two: the middle part, bars 23 to 36, hands apart first. Use the Speed control at half speed for the runs in bars 32 to 35.
4. Week three: the stormy part, bars 61 to 83. Play the left hand's repeated A2 lightly from the wrist, then add the right-hand chords.
5. Stitch the stops together and play the whole tour with Listen on.

Watch out for

• Thumping the repeated A2 in bars 61 to 69. It should murmur under the chords, not drown them.
• Rushing the 32nd notes in bars 32 to 35 so they arrive before the left hand does.
• Mixing up D♯ and D. The tune uses both, a step apart.
• Stopping at the end of each section. The parts flow into each other, so practise the joins too.

Power-up: press Loop, tap the first and last of the tricky bars, and they repeat until they feel easy. Hands in Options lets you practise one hand at a time. New to the notation? Start with how to read keyboard staff, then how to practise piano.