Prelude in G flat major, Op. 16 No. 3, by Scriabin
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Get the practice plan for Prelude in G flat major, Op. 16 No. 3
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- Hear it through at Slow (32 bpm). Open it in the reader, choose Slow, and follow the page with your eyes without playing. As it plays, count 4 to the bar.
- Learn the right hand of bars 1 to 8 on its own, in G♭ major. Say the note names out loud the first time through, then play it three times without stopping.
- Find the chords under it: G♭6, G♭maj7, C♭6 and D♭6. 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, 32 bpm. Bars 1 to 8 only. Stop after every wrong note and play that bar again before moving on.
- Move up to Steady (47 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 2 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
The third of Scriabin's Five Preludes, Op. 16, published by Belaieff in 1897. It is a calm, short piece in which both hands move together in quavers, the lines weaving in and out of each other.
How to play it
Listen to the top line and keep it just louder than the others, with the quavers flowing evenly. Change the pedal with every new harmony so the lines stay clear.
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.
Edition: Mutopia Project #761, licensed CC BY-SA. Converted to MusicXML by Artform and checked note for note against the original.
More free Scriabin sheet music
Who Scriabin was
Russian composer and pianist who began his career sounding almost like a direct descendant of Chopin, then spent the rest of it pushing further and further from any conventional harmony at all, chasing an increasingly mystical, almost occult vision of what music could do to a listener's mind. He believed sound and colour were fundamentally connected and built a machine, a "colour organ," meant to project light in sync with his orchestral piece Prometheus. He died suddenly at forty-three from an infected lip sore, midway through sketches for a work he claimed would end the world.
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 G♭ major.