Easy piano song, sheet music with note names
Für Elise piano notes: letters, octaves and easy sheet music
Fur Elise piano notes: the opening A theme with letter names and octaves, in A minor, 3/8, C4 to E5. Play it and print it (A4 and Letter PDF).
Two kinds of page: the tune with a letter name under every note, and a worksheet with the names left blank.
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Quick answer
Für Elise on this page is the opening A theme (right hand): 35 notes in 8 bars of 3/8, in A minor, with a range of C4 to E5 (16 semitones). It begins on E5 and ends on A4. Below: the letter names with octave numbers and the left hand, the notes on the staff, a version you can play, a note-name worksheet and the checks that were run. It is a simplified melody: what is left out is listed under “What is on this page”.
Für Elise at a glance
- Key
- A minor (no sharps or flats)
- Time signature
- 3/8: three eighth notes to the bar, counted as three quick beats or one lilting beat
- Range
- C4 to E5, 16 semitones
- Notes and bars
- 35 notes, 8 bars after a pick-up
- First note
- E5 (scale degree 5)
- Last note
- A4 (scale degree 1)
- Notes outside the key signature
- D♯ and G♯ (accidentals in the tune)
- Piece
- Bagatelle No. 25 in A minor, WoO 59 (Bia 515), for solo piano
- Composer
- Ludwig van Beethoven
- Date
- the lost manuscript was titled “Für Elise” and dated 27 April 1810; first published in 1867, 40 years after Beethoven’s death
- Tempo mark
- Poco moto (“a little motion”)
- Part on this page
- the pick-up, bars 1 to 7 and the first ending: the A theme, right hand
- Tempo on this page
- quarter note = 72; the Mutopia edition marks it Poco moto, quarter note = 72
- Hands
- Right hand: the melody shown on the staff. Left hand: the bass notes of each bar, from the same edition, are in the table below.
- Level
- Harder: wider than a major sixth (16 semitones); wider than an octave; 5 notes outside the key signature; sixteenth notes; a leap of a minor sixth or more. How the level is worked out
What is on this page
The staff shows the right hand of the opening section only: the two-note pick-up, seven bars of the first strain and the first ending. The left-hand arpeggios are listed bar by bar in the table, not on the staff. The repeat, the second ending and the contrasting middle sections are not included.
Press a note on the staff to hear it. The sound is made in your browser from the notes of this page (a plain synthesiser, not a recording). Normal speed is quarter note = 72: the Mutopia edition marks it Poco moto, quarter note = 72.
Für Elise
A minor · 3/8 · melody with note names · the opening A theme
Key A minor (no sharps or flats) Range C4 to E5 Music Ludwig van Beethoven (lost manuscript dated 27 April 1810; first published 1867)
Scale of A minor A B C D E F G Middle C is C4, the C nearest the middle of the keyboard
Melody: Mutopia Project, "Für Elise", right hand (Stelios Samelis) (Public Domain; Mutopia-2015/08/18-931), checked note by note against 4 other sources. Simplified: the opening A theme (right hand). Free to print and share. musictheoryprint.com/charts/fur-elise-piano-notes
Für Elise: name the notes
A minor · 3/8 · worksheet
Name Date Class
Write the letter name of every note on the line under it. The key signature tells you which notes are sharp: . The home note of the key is A.
Check your answers against the sheet with the note names. Extra: circle every note that is a A, the home note of the key.
Melody: Mutopia Project, "Für Elise", right hand (Stelios Samelis) (Public Domain). Simplified: the opening A theme (right hand). Free to print and share. musictheoryprint.com/charts/fur-elise-piano-notes
The notes of Für Elise, bar by bar
35 notes in 8 bars, after a pick-up, in A minor. Each note is a letter and an octave number: C4 is middle C, the C nearest the middle of the keyboard, and the numbers go up by one at every C. The ♯ and ♭ mean the black key above or below the letter. “held” means a tied note that is not played again; “rest” is silence. The left-hand column gives the bass notes of each bar, read from the same edition; “held” there means a bass note that is still sounding from the bar before.
| Bar | Right hand (melody) | Left hand (bass) | do re mi |
|---|---|---|---|
| pick-up | E5 D♯5 | – | sol fi |
| 1 | E5 D♯5 E5 B4 D5 C5 | – | sol fi sol re fa ri |
| 2 | A4 rest C4 E4 A4 | A2 E3 A3 | do (rest) ri sol do |
| 3 | B4 rest E4 G♯4 B4 | E2 E3 G♯3 | re (rest) sol ti re |
| 4 | C5 rest E4 E5 D♯5 | A2 E3 A3 | ri (rest) sol sol fi |
| 5 | E5 D♯5 E5 B4 D5 C5 | – | sol fi sol re fa ri |
| 6 | A4 rest C4 E4 A4 | A2 E3 A3 | do (rest) ri sol do |
| 7 | B4 rest E4 C5 B4 | E2 E3 G♯3 | re (rest) sol ri re |
| 8 | A4 | A2 E3 A3 | do |
do re mi uses movable do: do is A.
Which keys to press
The tune spans 10 letter names, from C4 to E5, more than an octave, so the hand has to travel along the keyboard. Try the notes on the virtual piano or press a note on the staff above to hear it.
What the tune is made of
How the melody moves
Each of the 34 moves from one note to the next, counted.
Which note lengths it uses
Every note counted by its length, as a fraction of a whole note.
Most-used note: E5 (6 times). Longest run of one repeated note: 1. Different pitches: 9, made from 7 note names (some are used in two octaves). Biggest leap: 12 semitones.
How the notes were checked
Not one note on this page was typed in or remembered. The melody is read by a program from Mutopia Project, "Für Elise", right hand (Stelios Samelis) (Public Domain; Mutopia-2015/08/18-931), cut to the opening A theme (right hand). A second program then looked for the same notes, in the same order, in each of the sources below, which were typeset or encoded by other people. The number is the share of this page’s notes that are found there, whatever key the other source is in; where a source covers only the start of the tune, only that part is compared (it is named in the table).
| Source | Licence | Notes there | Same pitches | Same pitches and lengths |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wikipedia, "Für Elise" (score 1 in the article)revision 1362481762 of 2026-07-04; compared on the pick-up and bars 1 to 5 of this page | CC BY-SA 4.0 | 35 | 100% | 100% |
| Wikimedia Commons, "Für Elise.mid"uploaded 2009-10-31, SHA-1 0b1d4fafef | Public domain | 1024 | 100% | 17% |
| Wikimedia Commons, "Furelise.mid"uploaded 2009-09-16, SHA-1 c8b43b9203 | Public domain | 547 | 100% | 86% |
| Wikimedia Commons, "Beethoven - Fur Elise.mid"uploaded 2019-06-06, SHA-1 e7bd1e414d | CC BY-SA 3.0 de | 550 | 100% | 86% |
The second column is lower than the first because editions write the same long notes in different ways (a half note and a tied pair, a held last note) and because performance MIDI files shorten or lengthen notes. Pitch is the part that matters for the letter names. A MIDI file of a whole piano piece does not say which notes are the melody, so the program takes the highest note at each moment; a melody note that sits under a higher accompaniment note can be missed, and that is the usual reason for a “no matching note” above.
Für Elise: questions people ask
What are the letter notes of Für Elise?
The first notes, with their octave numbers, are E5 D♯5 E5 D♯5 E5 B4 D5 C5 A4 C4 E4 A4. Every note of the opening A theme is in the table above, one bar per row (middle C is C4, the C nearest the middle of the keyboard; the next C up is C5).
What key and time signature is Für Elise in?
On this page it is in A minor (no sharps or flats), in 3/8: three eighth notes to the bar, counted as three quick beats or one lilting beat. A minor is the key of the piece. The same tune can be played in other keys: the notes keep their shape and only the starting note moves.
Why are there sharps, flats or naturals that are not in the key signature?
The key signature of A minor gives no sharps or flats. In this tune the notes are written with an accidental sign (D♯ and G♯): the pick-up: D♯5; bar 1: D♯5; bar 3: G♯4; bar 4: D♯5; bar 5: D♯5. A sharp, flat or natural sign before a note applies to that note for the rest of the bar.
Which hand plays what, and how high and low does it go?
The range is C4 to E5, 16 semitones. The tune spans 10 letter names, from C4 to E5, more than an octave, so the hand has to travel along the keyboard.
Is this the whole of Für Elise?
No. It is the first part of the piece, the A theme with its first ending. According to Wikipedia the full Bagatelle can be heard as a five-part rondo, A-B-A-C-A, so the A theme comes back between two contrasting sections; those sections are not on this page.
Is Für Elise free to print and share?
Beethoven’s manuscript (now lost) was dated 27 April 1810 and the piece was first published in 1867, after his death, so the music is old enough to be free. The edition used here is the Mutopia Project edition typeset from Breitkopf & Härtel (1888), which its typesetter places in the public domain. The sheets are made by this site from that edition and may be printed and shared. Other editions, arrangements and recordings have their own rights.
How do I know the notes are right?
The melody is read by a program from Mutopia Project, "Für Elise", right hand (Stelios Samelis), never typed in. A second program then compares it, note by note and in order, with 4 other sources: Wikipedia's score (100% of its notes, the pick-up and bars 1 to 5); MIDI file “Für Elise” (100% of its notes); MIDI file “Furelise” (100% of its notes); MIDI file “Beethoven - Fur Elise” (100% of its notes). 4 of the 4 agree with this page on every pitch. Where they differ, the page lists every note and bar, so you can see the difference.
Why does Für Elise start with E and D sharp?
The melody opens by rocking between E5 and the black key just below it, D♯5. Wikipedia describes this as an oscillation between the dominant, E, and its chromatic lower neighbour, D♯, and says it has become one of the most recognizable openings in classical music. The notes of the first phrase, in order, are E5 D♯5 E5 D♯5 E5 B4 D5 C5 A4.
Why do some editions have a different note in bar 7?
Wikipedia explains that the second right-hand note of bar 7, the first note of the three-note upbeat figure, is E4 in the first published score (by Ludwig Nohl), while the same figure has D4 in every parallel passage, and many editions change one to match the other. The edition used here and all three MIDI files used in the check have E4 at this place (bar 7 of the table, the note after the rest).
What does the left hand play?
In the edition used here the left hand plays broken chords: A2 E3 A3 under the A minor bars and E2 E3 G♯3 under the E bars, a three-note pattern at the start of the bar. They are listed bar by bar in the left-hand column of the table.
musictheoryprint.com · free to print and share
Für Elise in real music: the numbers
In A minor the tune uses 7 of the 12 notes of the chromatic scale, 2 of them outside the key signature. It moves by step 15 times out of 34, and ends on degree 1.
This tune against real art songs
| What | This tune | OpenScore Lieder (352 minor-key songs) |
|---|---|---|
| First note | E5 (degree 5) | 46.6% start on degree 5 |
| Last note | A4 (degree 1) | 59.4% end on degree 1 |
| Range of the tune | 16 semitones (C4 to E5) | 39% of 1,458 first vocal lines span fewer semitones, 51% more |
The art-song numbers are for the first vocal line of every minor-key song whose key signature does not change; the numbers for this tune are counted on the melody printed above.
How common A minor is
| Collection | Items with a key | Share in A minor | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| OpenScore Lieder | 1,462 | 6.1% | 7 of 24 |
| Mutopia | 1,974 | 6.1% | 6 of 24 |
| MusicBrainz works | 13,669 | 5.7% | 9 of 24 |
| MusicBrainz works | 5,340 | 6.3% | 8 of 24 |
| Open Opus work titles | 3,587 | 4.6% | 11 of 24 |
| AcousticBrainz recordings | 63,124 | 8.0% | 2 of 24 |
Counts of key signatures (and estimated major or minor) in the collections the site has measured; see the key page for A minor.
Where the tune sits among singers' ranges
| Voice type (as labelled in the scores) | Typical range of a real song line | This tune (C4 to E5) |
|---|---|---|
| Soprano | E♭4 to F5 | wider than this range by 2 semitones |
| Alto / Contralto | C4 to C5 | wider than this range by 4 semitones |
| Tenor | F3 to F♯4 | wider than this range by 3 semitones |
| Baritone | C3 to E4 | fits if moved down 12 semitones |
| Bass | A2 to C4 | wider than this range by 1 semitone |
Typical range = the median across song lines of the lowest and highest notes (ignoring one stray note each side), from 285 vocal lines in the OpenScore Lieder Corpus. "Fits" means both ends of the tune are inside it.
Method
- This tune's own numbers are counted by a script on the decoded melody (tied notes counted once, rests ignored).
- Art-song numbers are read from the files behind the site's statistics pages (OpenScore Lieder Corpus: key and scale-degree counts for the first vocal line of every piece, vocal ranges of 1,458 lines).
- Key counts for Mutopia and MusicBrainz come from the same published statistics; a key is counted from its key signature.
Data: computed from the OpenScore Lieder Corpus (CC0), 1,462 scores. Snapshot: commit 6b2dc542ce (2026-04-07).
Background
Excerpts from open reference works, reproduced as published (references, images and tables removed). Every excerpt names its source, licence and original article.
About “Für Elise”
Overview
Bagatelle No. 25 in A minor (WoO 59, Bia 515) for solo piano, commonly known as "Für Elise", is one of Ludwig van Beethoven's most popular compositions. It was not published during his lifetime but discovered (by Ludwig Nohl) 40 years after his death, and may be termed either a Bagatelle or an Albumblatt. The identity of "Elise" is unknown; researchers have suggested Therese Malfatti, Elisabeth Röckel, and Elise Barensfeld.
History
The score was published in 1867, 40 years after Beethoven's death. The discoverer of the piece, Ludwig Nohl, affirmed that the original autograph manuscript, now lost, had the title: "Für Elise am 27 April [1810] zur Erinnerung von L. v. Bthvn" ("For Elise on April 27 in memory by L. v. Bthvn"). The music was published as part of Nohl's Neue Briefe Beethovens (New Letters by Beethoven) on pages 28 to 33, printed in Stuttgart by Johann Friedrich Cotta.
Music
The piece can be heard as a five-part rondo in the form A-B-A-C-A. It is in A minor and in time. It begins with the refrain (A), a flowing melody in binary form marked Poco moto (literally "a little motion", a marking that appears nowhere else in Beethoven's works), with an arpeggiated accompaniment. The unaccompanied oscillation between the dominant E and its chromatic lower neighbor D♯ that begins the melody has become one of the most recognizable openings in classical music, but it also serves as a main topic of musical discussion. The digression at measure 9 glances at the relative major before returning to the original theme and key, preceded by a prolongation of the dominant, E, that extends the opening lower-neighbor oscillation. The pitch outline of these bars, E-F-E-D-C-B, i.e. an upper-neighbor ascent to F5 followed by a descending scale, also forms the basis of the two episodes, B and C, thus unifying the piece. The B section that begins in bar 23 is in the submediant, F major. Its theme begins by tracing the above outline in somewhat elaborated fashion and modulates to the dominant, followed by 32nd-note runs repeating a cadential progression in C major in a codetta-like passage. (The chordal three-note upbeats in the left hand are anticipated by the transition to this episode in bar 22.) This suggests a rather expansive form, but Beethoven suddenly returns to the dominant of A minor in bar 34, once again lingering on E and its lower neighbor and leading to an exact repeat of the A section. Although another nominal episode follows (C) at bar 59, it does not leave the tonic and is rather coda-like, unfolding over a tonic pedal and emphatically cadencing in the home key. Once again, there are unifying relationships with previous material. The melody retraces the descending outline alluded to earlier, and the cadence in bars 66–67 is an augmented version of the theme's cadence in bars 7–8. After a glance at a Neapolitan harmony (B-flat major) and a cadence at bar 76 that brings the music to a complete halt for the only time, an ascending A minor arpeggio and a chromatic descent over two octaves follows, sort of a cadenza in tempo, leading to a final repetition of the A section. The piece concludes without a postlude.
Source: Wikipedia, “Für Elise” — CC BY-SA 4.0 — text excerpted; see the article for the full text and authors. Revision of 2026-07-04.
Sources and licences for the text, scores and recordings on this page are on the credits page.
Sources: Mutopia Project, "Für Elise", right hand (Stelios Samelis), Wikipedia, "Für Elise" (score 1 in the article), Wikimedia Commons, "Für Elise.mid", Wikimedia Commons, "Furelise.mid", Wikimedia Commons, "Beethoven - Fur Elise.mid".