Für Elise Notes: Letter Notes for the Famous Opening

When people say they want to play Für Elise, they almost always mean the first eight bars: the rocking E and D# everyone recognises in two seconds. That's what this page gives you, in letter notes, line by line. It is not the whole piece; Beethoven's bagatelle goes on into two contrasting middle sections. But the famous opening is a complete little tune on its own.

You can play the Für Elise opening in your browser while you read. It's the web sound demo for echoPi, a fidget slider with real clicks that's still in development: every click or push plays the next note of the tune, and you set the timing yourself. It's a quick way to hear the lines below before you find them on a keyboard.

Für Elise opening notes in letters

How to read the table: note names carry no octave numbers. The range is C4 (middle C) to E5, so each letter means the one that fits inside that span. There's no number-note column, because number notes count the steps of a C major scale and D# and G# aren't in it. Each row is one phrase.

That's 35 notes using 9 different pitches. Lines 4 to 6 are a repeat of lines 1 to 3 with a different ending: line 3 climbs to C and hangs in the air, line 6 comes back down to A and closes. The first E in line 4 is the low E (the same E as in lines 2 and 3), so line 4 starts with an octave leap from low E straight up to the high E.

The table is the melody line only. In Beethoven's score the left hand adds a short bass figure under each landing note, A–E–A under the A and E–E–G# under the B.

Where the black keys are

Für Elise is the rare beginner request that needs a black key on its second note, and that's where most people get stuck.

• D# is the black key just left of E, the right-hand one of the group of two. You play the high D#, below the high E, four times, always in the rocking figure.
• G# is the middle key of the group of three, between G and A. It appears once, in line 3, in the octave just above middle C.

Everything else is white keys. Coming from a C major song like Twinkle, the trick is to stop thinking of D# as "almost E": the whole opening is built on swinging between the two.

The rhythm, without notation

The piece is in 3/8 and marked Poco moto, "a little motion". In practice the opening is an even stream of short notes with three kinds of pause:

1. The rocking figure is all one speed. E D# E D# E B D C are equal, quick notes. Don't linger on the first E; it's a pickup into the bar.
2. Each line ends on a longer note. The A at the end of line 1, the B at the end of line 2 and the C at the end of line 3 are held twice as long as the running notes, then followed by a short rest while the bass rings.
3. Lines 2, 3 and 5 are pickups. C E A, E G# B and the C E A in line 5 lead into the held note at the end of each line. Think "da-da-da-DUM".

On the browser demo those three habits are all the rhythm you need: tap the eight running notes evenly, pause on the A, then tap the short groups and land on B and C. The score starts pianissimo, so play it soft.

How to play it on piano

Use your right hand for the whole melody in the table. Find middle C, then the C an octave above it; your hand will sit around that upper C to start.

• Line 1: put your thumb on B (just below that upper C), index on C, middle finger on D and D#, ring finger on E. One fingering that works: E (4), D# (3), E (4), D# (3), E (4), B (1), D (3), C (2), A (1). The last A is a small stretch down with the thumb.
• Line 2: your hand drops to middle C for C E A, then comes back up to B. This jump trips people up, so practise "A, then C E A B" on its own.
• Line 3: E, G# (the black key), B, C, all in the octave just above middle C.
• Lines 4 to 6: the same shapes again. Line 4 starts with the low E and leaps up to the high E for the rocking figure.

The left hand, when you add it, plays a three-note bass figure on the A, B and C landings. Get the right hand steady first; the even rhythm matters more than the bass.

How to play it on a kalimba (the honest version)

C major is a popular kalimba tuning, and on it every tine is a white-key note (Wikipedia's mbira article covers the modern kalimba's diatonic tuning). That's the problem for Für Elise: an ordinary C-major kalimba has no D# and no G#. The range is fine, since middle C to E5 sits inside a common 17-tine instrument, but two of the nine pitches aren't there. Your options:

• Retune a tine. Kalimba tines can be pushed in or out to change their pitch, and each one tunes independently. Because the opening never uses G, you can raise one G tine to G#. D# is harder: the tune needs both D and D# in the same octave, so retuning the D tine breaks the D in line 1.
• Use a chromatic kalimba. These add the sharps and flats, so the opening plays as written.
• Simplify. Play D for D# and G for G#. You get something Für Elise-shaped, but the E–D# swing is the tune's identity, and with D it sounds off.

On a kalimba in C, songs with no black keys are a better start, such as Ode to Joy.

E or D? A real difference between editions

Compare sheet music and you may find the run into the final A printed two ways. In bar 7 (line 6 here), the first note of the three-note pickup is E in some editions and D in others.

The reason is the sources. Beethoven's autograph, which the scholar Ludwig Nohl transcribed and published in 1867, has been lost since, and Nohl's edition has E there. A Beethoven draft kept at the Beethoven-Haus Bonn has D; the publisher G. Henle Verlag explains on its blog that its Urtext edition follows the draft. Wikipedia adds that Nohl's score gives E in bar 7 but D in the parallel passages, and that many editions use E until the final bars.

The notes on this page, like most versions people learn first, use E C B A. If your teacher's copy says D C B A, neither of you is wrong.

Where Für Elise comes from

The piece's formal name is Bagatelle No. 25 in A minor, catalogue number WoO 59. According to Wikipedia, Nohl reported the lost manuscript's title as "Für Elise am 27 April [1810] zur Erinnerung von L. v. Bthvn", so it dates from 27 April 1810. It wasn't published in Beethoven's lifetime; the 1867 publication came 40 years after his death.

Nobody knows for certain who Elise was. Researchers have proposed Therese Malfatti (on the theory that "Therese" was misread), the soprano Elisabeth Röckel, and Elise Barensfeld. A revised version from 1822 with a different accompaniment was transcribed by the musicologist Barry Cooper, but the version heard today is Nohl's.

Wikipedia quotes the scholar Mina Yang on why the opening became a ringtone staple: the first eight bars fit a limited sound palette, open with an instantly recognisable figure, and loop neatly. Those eight bars are exactly the 35 notes in the table above.

A practice order that works: lines 1 and 4 until the E–D# rocking is even, then line 2 with its drop to middle C, then line 3 with the single G#, then all six slowly. To hear the target first, tap through Für Elise one note at a time. For more tunes laid out this way, see easy songs with letter notes.