NotePlayMusicPiano, music theory and history videos
Watch a piano performance, learn one music theory idea, or discover a piece's history in under a minute. Find the score or the matching practice and tutorial.
Piano performances
Bach: Toccata in D minor - piano opening
Watch the famous spooky opening of BWV 565 with falling notes for both hands, play the matching piano score, or explore the original organ edition.
Halloween Theme - skeleton-hand piano performance
John Carpenter’s Halloween theme, arranged by Berkheimer, with falling notes and animated skeleton hands. The complete supplied piano arrangement plays with Salamander Grand Piano samples generated in your browser.
Toccata in D minor - skeleton-hand piano performance
The spooky opening of Bach’s Toccata in D minor, BWV 565, reduced for piano with falling notes and animated skeleton hands. Salamander Grand Piano samples are generated in your browser.
Danse macabre - skeleton-hand piano performance
Midnight strikes twelve, Death tunes his violin and the skeletons start to waltz: the opening of Saint-Saëns’ Danse macabre on piano, with falling notes and animated skeleton hands. Salamander Grand Piano samples are generated in your browser.
Also sprach Zarathustra - space piano video
The famous “Sunrise” from Richard Strauss’ tone poem (1896), the music of 2001: A Space Odyssey, on piano with falling notes in a space scene. Ends with a short look at the piece and its composer.
Flight of the Bumblebee - arcade piano video
Rimsky-Korsakov’s buzzing showpiece from the opera The Tale of Tsar Saltan (1900), on piano with falling notes in a retro arcade game. Ends with the story behind the piece.
Clair de lune - block world piano video
The opening of Debussy’s Clair de lune (1905), slightly sped up, on piano with falling notes in a block world. Ends with where the title comes from and what Impressionism means.
Moonlight Sonata, 3rd movement - neon piano video
The stormy Presto agitato finale of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata (1801) on piano with neon falling notes. Ends with how the sonata got its nickname.
The Entertainer - pixel platformer piano video
Scott Joplin’s ragtime hit (1902) on piano with falling notes in a pixel platformer. Ends with what “ragtime” means and Joplin’s late Pulitzer Prize.
Vivaldi: Summer, 3rd movement - neon piano video
The hailstorm Presto from Summer in Vivaldi’s Four Seasons (1725), reduced for piano with neon falling notes. Ends with the poem behind the music and “the Red Priest”.
Gymnopédie No. 1 - block world piano video
Erik Satie’s calm Gymnopédie No. 1 (1888), a little faster than marked, on piano with falling notes in a block world. Ends with a short look at Satie and the piece.
Music theory
Middle C joins the clefs
Find middle C below the treble staff and above the bass staff, hear the same piano key, then practise stepping through ledger notes.
Why does F major have a B♭?
Hear the major scale pattern, watch it break when you start on F, and see why one flat in the key signature fixes it.
Why does 3/4 feel like a waltz?
Hear Happy Birthday lean on beat one, hear it limp when forced into four, and see what the two numbers of 3/4 mean.
Stop counting lines: read treble clef with 3 landmarks
Learn middle C, treble G and top F, then read any nearby note by stepping line, space, line from the closest landmark.
Why does G major have an F♯?
Play G major on white keys, hear the tone and semitone land the wrong way round, and watch one black key fix the pattern.
Happy or sad? One note decides
Hear C major turn into C minor when one note drops a semitone, then hear the same change in Frère Jacques.
Remember every Grade 1 key signature
Count five notes up from C for G and D major, five down for F major, then see how the Grade 2 minor keys share those signatures.
Stop counting lines: read bass clef with 3 landmarks
Learn bottom G, bass F and middle C, then read any nearby note by stepping line, space, line from the closest landmark.
Music history
The tune Grieg hated
Why Grieg hated his troll music, and how one short tune played faster and louder shows accelerando and crescendo.
Never play this at your wedding
"Here comes the bride" is from Wagner's Lohengrin, where the marriage is over by morning, and a royal wedding in 1858 made it the world's wedding song.
The loudest joke in classical music
Haydn wrote a gentle tune, then hit the audience with one fortissimo chord, all to beat his own former student. The story behind the Surprise Symphony, from pp to ff.
Für Elise probably wasn't for Elise
Beethoven never published Für Elise, the manuscript is lost, and the name may be a misreading. Was it for Therese Malfatti, or a singer called Elise?
Beethoven never heard his greatest music
Beethoven's hearing began to fail in his late twenties. The secret 1802 letter, the masterpieces he wrote while going deaf, and the 1824 premiere of the Ninth where he could only see the applause.