Barcarolle Op. 7 Cécile Chaminade, by Chaminade
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 Barcarolle Op. 7 Cécile Chaminade
Here it is. Check your inbox for day 1.
- Hear it through at Slow (34 bpm). Open it in the reader, choose Slow, and follow the page with your eyes without playing. As it plays, count 2 big beats to the bar.
- Learn the right hand of bars 1 to 8 on its own, in F major. Say the note names out loud the first time through, then play it three times without stopping.
- Find the chords under it: F, C7, Fmaj7 and C. Play each one as a block in your left hand and say its name, so you know what the harmony is before the left hand has to move.
- 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, 34 bpm. Bars 1 to 8 only. Stop after every wrong note and play that bar again before moving on.
- Move up to Steady (51 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 3 minutes) from the start, at whatever speed keeps it going. A steady run with a few slips beats a fast one that stops.
What kind of piece this is
A barcarolle takes its rocking compound-time lilt from the songs of Venetian gondoliers.
How to play it
Feel it in two slow swings per bar rather than six beats, and let the bass rock without ever pushing.
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 Chaminade sheet music
Who Chaminade was
French composer and pianist who was one of the first women anywhere to make a full living from writing music, published more than four hundred pieces, and was so popular in the United States that Chaminade Clubs formed in cities she had never visited. Bizet, a family friend, called her a little Mozart when she was eight. She was the first woman composer to be given the Légion d'honneur. Her music went out of fashion for most of the twentieth century and is being played again now, which she would have found unsurprising.
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 F major.