Étude in A minor, by Alkan
Every score here is public domain, free to read, print and keep. Open it in the browser and it plays, at whatever tempo you can read it.
Get the practice plan for Étude in A minor
Here it is. Check your inbox for day 1.
- Hear it through at Slow (61 bpm). Open it in the reader, choose Slow, and follow the page with your eyes without playing. As it plays, count 2 to the bar.
- Learn the right hand of bars 1 to 8 on its own, in A minor. Say the note names out loud the first time through, then play it three times without stopping.
- Learn the left hand of the same bars on its own. Keep it quiet and even: it is the floor the tune stands on.
- Put hands together at Slow, 61 bpm. Bars 1 to 8 only. Stop after every wrong note and play that bar again before moving on.
- Move up to Steady (92 bpm) once Slow feels easy three times in a row. Then learn the next 8 bars the same way: right hand, left hand, together.
- Play the whole piece (about 7 minutes) from the start, at whatever speed keeps it going. A steady run with a few slips beats a fast one that stops.
About this piece
A short concert study from around 1840 by Charles-Valentin Alkan, the brilliant and reclusive Parisian pianist who was a friend and neighbour of Chopin. It drives forward in repeated notes and chords marked Allegro molto.
How to play it
Keep the repeated chords light and the wrist loose. Practise slowly and build speed only when the rhythm is secure.
Reading it, and printing it
The score opens in Artform's reader, which shows the music as engraved notation and plays it back so you can hear the line before you try it. You can slow the tempo down, loop a passage that is not working yet, and print the page when you would rather have paper on the stand.
The file itself is MusicXML, which MuseScore, Sibelius, Finale and Dorico all open, so the notes are yours to keep whatever you read them in.
More free Alkan sheet music
Who Alkan was
French virtuoso who was, by the account of everyone who heard him, the equal of Liszt and Chopin, and who withdrew almost entirely from public life for decades at a time. What he wrote in that retreat is some of the most difficult music ever put on paper, including a concerto and a symphony for solo piano with no orchestra anywhere near them. He was a scholar of Hebrew and lived surrounded by books. The story that a falling bookcase killed him is a myth that has comfortably outlived his music, which deserves better.
Learn the music behind it
Reading a piece and understanding it are different skills. If you want the harmony under this one, the chord trainer teaches chords the way songs use them, and the scale pages cover the fingering for every key, including A minor.