Online Piano Lessons: Play Fur Elise – Lesson 4
Online Piano Lessons – How to Play Fur Elise – Lesson 4
Hello again everyone. I hope that some of you have made it through my first 3 online piano lessons of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Fur Elise. If so, then you already know how to play the complete first movement.
In today’s video lesson we will begin learning how to play the second movement of Fur Elise. Note that you do not need to be proficient in the first movement at all in order to begin learning the second movement. Each movement is a self contained piece of music.
That said, if you do want to review the piano lessons from the first movement here are the links for your convenience:
Online Piano Lessons: How To Play Fur Elise – Lesson 1
Online Piano Lessons: How To Play Fur Elise – Lesson 2
Online Piano Lessons: How To Play Fur Elise – Lesson 3
And you can watch me play the whole composition here: Online Piano Performance: Fur Elise.
Note that the second movement of Fur Elise is much more difficult to play than the first movement. But please do not let that scare you away.
I have broken the next few lessons up into very manageable pieces. Just put in about five minutes a day, and you will be amazed at how quickly you can become proficient in this part of the song. Once again, make sure that you rewind frequently until you internalize each note being played.
Now let’s look at the first of several piano lessons to learn the second movement of Fur Elise:
Some Theory
Let’s now continue to learn how to read the sheet music for Fur Elise.
If you want to purchase the sheet music for Fur Elise, you can click on the following link: Fur Elise sheet music.
Note that you do not need any sheet music to learn to play the piano with my videos. Only purchase the sheet music if you want to have it for yourself.
Here is the transcription of the beginning of the second movement of Fur Elise.
Beamed Notes And Slur Lines
In the above transcription, see if you can pick out some of the sixteenth notes.
Yes it’s true, every note on the bass staff is a sixteenth note. Note that all of the notes on the bass staff are beamed together in groups of three or six.
There are many beamed notes on the treble staff as well. Can you pick out the two eighth notes that are beamed together on the treble staff? That’s right – they’re at the beginning of the third measure. These two notes have what is called a slur line over them.
A slur lines indicates that these two notes are to be played “smooth and connected.” The technical musical term is legato.
Notice that there are also some beamed notes with an additional partial beam. Check out these two notes from the second measure:
In last weeks post I discussed the dotted eighth note.
In the figure above we have a dotted sixteenth note.
Can you figure out the duration of this note?
Remember that when a dot is placed next to a note, the duration of the note is increased by half of its value. Since half of 1/16 is 1/32, the duration of the dotted sixteenth note is 1/16 + 1/32 = 3/32.
The second note has an extra partial beam on it signifying that it is a thirty-second note. So the total duration of these two notes is 3/32 + 1/32 = 4/32 = 1/8.
More Dots
In the first measure there are some dots that appear below some of the notes on the treble staff and above some of the notes on the bass staff.
These dots signify to play these notes staccato. The word staccato means “with each sound or note sharply detached or separated from the others.” In other words, these notes to are to be played with a much shorter duration.
Well that is all for today. Please continue practicing the beginning of the second movement of Fur Elise throughout this week.
Anyone interested in a more formal system of learning how to play the piano may want to read my review of the PianoForAll system here: PianoForAll review
See you next week…
~ Steve