|
|
Notes from The Music Hub
September 28, 2026
|
What Fur Elise Taught Me About Meter
A few weeks ago, one of my students in The Music Hub who has graduated from the Piano Accelerator program asked me about learning Fur Elise by Beethoven.
Fur Elise is a great intermediate level piece of music, and a "crowd favorite", so-to-speak, so I was happy to oblige.
I am in the process of creating tutorials and demonstration videos on how to play the piece.
But the first thing I did was re-engrave the piece.
What is engraving (and re-engraving?)
Engraving music has to do with making the music look good on the page. it is a combination of using proper notation (pitches, rhythms, articulations, dynamics and so forth) and formatting.
Re-engraving simply refers to making a new, updated copy. I wanted to have my own version of the piece in The Music Hub so I wouldn't have to worry about copyright and owing anyone royalties.
One of the choices I had to make was about time signature. Time signature is the common term, but meter signature is more accurate.
Meter refers to how beats are grouped and subdivided, and how many go in each measure.
The meter signature tells us at the beginning of the piece what the meter is, so we don't have to look through the music to figure it out.
Fur Elise was originally written in 3/8 time, which means there are three beats in each measure and the eighth note is equal to one beat.
But there can be different ways of writing a rhythm.
I could have written the music in 3/4 and kept all the proportions of the notes the same.
And that's what I did, at first.
But after a little while I noticed that I didn't like how it looked.
In 3/4, the most common note in Fur Elise would be an eighth note. But in 3/8, the most common note is a sixteenth note.
I thought the eighth notes would be easier to read and make it easier to figure out the rhythm.
But changing the meter and the types of notes had an additional effect that I didn't like.
The eighth notes were bigger and farther apart.
This made the music look heavy, and it communicated that the tempo is slower than it actually is.
The sixteenth notes, though, add a "filigree" to the page that makes the music seem more elegant, graceful, and light.
This communication of a different character and quality to the music was not something that is communicated in words.
It's all in how the music looks.
When Beethoven originally wrote Fur Elise, it appears he chose 3/8 as his meter for a reason. He wasn't just trying to make the rhythms look harder with more beams.
He was communicating something about the style of the piece.
His choice was the right one all along and did not need updating.
By the way...
Did you know that Fur Elise has the form of a Rondo?
A Rondo is a piece of music that has sections that keep coming back throughout the piece in-between other sections. The piece also usually ends with a repetition of the repeating section.
Most people are familiar with the first section of Fur Elise, the part that goes back and forth between two notes with some arpeggiations in the left hand.
In fact, the first section sometimes appears *by itself* in late-beginner method books.
But it's not the whole piece! There are two more sections to learn if you're really going to play Fur Elise!
Thankfully, however, the first section comes back a few times. Learning the first section means you know 60% of the entire piece!
In The Music Hub, I am teaching ALL THREE sections!
This video is a demo of the entire piece, which I will break down into smaller lessons.
If you have ever wanted to learn Fur Elise, you can!
It is definitely for intermediate players, so if you are brand-new to piano, you would want to go through the Piano Accelerator levels, first.
I am super excited to be able to help Music Hub Members learn this piece!
If you're ready to join The Music Hub Membership, you can click the button below:
If you're just starting out and don't need or want access to all the modules, you can get access to just the Piano Accelerator Program by clicking the button below. That page will give you all the information you need!
Simply respond to this email if you have any questions!
Happy Music Making!
Heather Niemi Savage, composer, pianist & educator
Founder of The Music Hub
