Les étoiles d'or, No. 1: Valse, by Streabbog
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 Les étoiles d'or, No. 1: Valse
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- Hear it through at Slow (50 bpm). Open it in the reader, choose Slow, and follow the page with your eyes without playing. As it plays, count 3 to the bar.
- Learn the right hand of bars 1 to 8 on its own, in C major. Say the note names out loud the first time through, then play it three times without stopping.
- Find the chords under it: C, G7, G and D7. 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, 50 bpm. Bars 1 to 8 only. Stop after every wrong note and play that bar again before moving on.
- Move up to Steady (74 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
Louis Gobbaerts published hundreds of easy piano pieces under the name Streabbog, his surname spelled backwards. This little waltz opens in C major and moves to a section in G major, with a simple oom-pah-pah left hand throughout.
How to play it
Play the left-hand bass note on beat one a little stronger than the two chords after it. Keep the right-hand tune smooth and let each phrase finish gently.
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 #2092, licensed CC BY-SA. Converted to MusicXML by Artform and checked note for note against the original.
More free Streabbog sheet music
Who Streabbog was
The name is Gobbaerts spelled backwards. Jean Louis Gobbaerts was a Belgian pianist who published more than twelve hundred pieces under at least three invented names, and the one the sheet music carries is the one that stuck. The music is unashamedly for students and drawing rooms, tuneful and easy on a small hand, and the pseudonym probably says something about how seriously he expected it to be taken. It is still played, which is more than most of what he was hiding from can claim.
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 C major.