Prelude in C (Sheet Music)

Many of you have asked about the sheet music for the piece I play at the start of Piano Technique: A Whole-Body Approach. Well, with just a few clicks, you can now instantly download and print out a beautifully edited and fingered score of it, and be playing it within minutes.

As a private teacher, I'm always trying to find repertoire that teaches specific skills, and at the same time, is a pleasure to play. Naturally, the challenge is greater in the early stages, when students' abilities are so limited.

Well, a long time ago I wrote a piece called Prelude in C that's worked well over the years, and that people have enjoyed playing. I've taught it to more than a hundred students by now. With adult beginners, it's sometimes the first piece they learn.

And because I like to teach "by ear" in the beginning stages (for many reasons, as discussed here), I wrote this piece using simple repeating chord patterns that students can easily memorize without having to read music. The beginning and ending sections are composed entirely of broken chords, which are easier to play than block chords, and give the music a lovely flowing sound.

The piece uses the chord progression from the famous Pachelbel Canon. And I recently added a contrasting B (middle) section that has the flavor, I think, of a theme from an epic movie.

Here's a video of me playing this piece. Don't be misled by the fact that I play it at a really fast tempo. The A section (and its return) don't need to be played nearly that fast.