Notalo › Piano songs with letters › Eine kleine Nachtmusik (opening)
Eine kleine Nachtmusik (opening) — piano notes with letters
The first eight bars of the first movement: the rising G major fanfare, its answer on D, and the three trilled notes that climb to the top of the phrase before the scale runs back down to G. One sharp (F♯), plus a single C♯ in bar 7.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, 1787 · G major · 4/4 · public domain · arranged and labeled by Notalo
Hear it. A MIDI file of exactly these notes at 120 BPM — open it in any music app, or slow it down to practice.
Download MIDIAbout the song
Mozart entered this serenade for strings into his own catalogue in August 1787, while he was writing Don Giovanni; the title just means “a little night music”. It was not published until 1827, after his death, and one of its original five movements is lost. The first movement's opening — a bold rising arpeggio in G, answered by the same shape in D — is probably the best known eight bars of classical music after Beethoven's Fifth.
How to play it, phrase by phrase
Bar 1 alternates G and D, low and high: G D G D. Bar 2 runs up the G chord, G D G B, and lands on a long D. Bars 3 and 4 do the same on the D chord: C A C A, then C A F♯ A and a long D. Bar 5 starts the second idea: a long G, then G with a quick F♯–G under it; bar 6 does that on B, bar 7 on D with a C♯ turn. Bar 8 is a G major scale from the high G straight down to the G you started on. Play bars 1–4 short and crisp, 5–8 smooth.
Letter notes, bar by bar (right hand)
Read left to right; a | is a bar line. Chord symbols are for the left hand or a guitar.
| Bar | Chord | Right-hand letters |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | G | G D G D |
| 2 | G | G D G B D |
| 3 | D7 | C A C A |
| 4 | D7 | C A F♯ A D |
| 5 | Gmaj7 | G G F♯ G |
| 6 | G | B B A B |
| 7 | Dmaj7 | D D C♯ D |
| 8 | Gmaj7 | G F♯ E D C B A G |
Three things to watch
- Bars 1–4 use only the notes of two chords, G major and D major — learn the shapes, not the letters.
- The rests in Mozart's original are written here as longer notes, so the MIDI keeps the same timing.
- Bar 8 is a straight G major scale down from the high G: one finger per note.
Have a different version, or a different song? Upload your own sheet music — a photo or PDF — and Notalo writes the letters under every note the same way, plus chords and a MIDI file.
Add letters to my sheet musicMore songs with letters
Jingle Bells · Silent Night · We Wish You a Merry Christmas · Deck the Halls · Happy Birthday · Für Elise · Twinkle Twinkle Little Star · Canon in D · Ode to Joy · Amazing Grace · Moonlight Sonata (1st movement, easy) · Minuet in G · Greensleeves · Mary Had a Little Lamb · Old MacDonald Had a Farm · Chopsticks · Joy to the World · The First Noel · Auld Lang Syne · O Holy Night · The Twelve Days of Christmas · Ave Maria (Schubert, easy) · God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen · In the Hall of the Mountain King · Nocturne in E-flat, Op. 9 No. 2 (easy) · O Christmas Tree (O Tannenbaum) · The Star-Spangled Banner · Spring (The Four Seasons, opening) · Wedding March (Mendelssohn) · Hark! The Herald Angels Sing · London Bridge Is Falling Down · Yankee Doodle · Itsy Bitsy Spider · Scarborough Fair · The Blue Danube (waltz theme) · Symphony No. 5 (opening motif) · Prelude in C major, BWV 846 · Morning Mood (Peer Gynt)
New to the staff? Start with how to read sheet music.
Frequently asked questions
Is this sheet music free to print and use?
Yes. Eine kleine Nachtmusik (opening) is in the public domain and this arrangement was written and rendered by Notalo. Print it, share it, use it in lessons.
What do the colors mean?
Red letters are the right hand (treble clef), blue letters are the left hand (bass clef), green is the chord for the bar. This is the same output Notalo gives for any sheet music you upload.
Can I get it with Do Re Mi or numbers instead of letters?
Yes — download the image above, upload it to Notalo, and pick solfège (Do Re Mi), German letters, or numbers (1 2 3) as the label style.