Gymnopédie No. 1
Erik Satie
Free MIDI file · CC-BY-SA 4.0
The Blue Danube (main theme) · piano sheet music & MIDI file
The Viennese waltz of all Viennese waltzes, trimmed to its main theme for beginners: preview it here, then download the free MIDI and sheet music PDF.
⏱0:39♪247 notes🎚Beginner🎹B2 → C6📦2 KB
0:00 / 0:00
Preview played right in your browser with the app's real piano (lightweight version). Inside Pianovera: full multi-layer sound, fingering display and Wait mode.
It started life as a waltz for men's choir: Johann Strauss II had it sung by a Vienna choral society in 1867. The orchestral version became a hit that same year at the Paris World's Fair, and it never left the stage after that. It's still a fixture of Vienna's New Year's Concert, and Stanley Kubrick used it to dock spaceships in 2001: A Space Odyssey.
This arrangement keeps what matters: the main theme, moved to C major (the original is in D), over the classic oom-pah-pah bass. The left hand plays a bass note and then 2 chords, the right hand sings the rising arpeggio. No sharps or flats in the key signature, which makes it the most direct way we know to play a real Viennese waltz in your first months.
The Blue Danube: the first notes
Right hand, in letter names (C4 = middle C): C4 C4 E4 G4 G4 G5 G5 E5 E5 C4 C4 E4 G4 G4 G5 G5 F5 F5 B3 B3 D4 A4 A4 A5… The rest scrolls in the preview above, with the fingering, and the sheet music PDF has the whole piece.
What you'll be working on
- The waltz bass, with its low note and 2 light chords
- A 3-beat sway with the weight on beat 1
- The arpeggio theme, smooth and singing
- The motif's repeated notes, light and detached
Playing The Blue Danube on piano with Pianovera
Turn on Pianovera's metronome and count "1, 2, 3" out loud while the left hand plays alone. Once the sway feels natural, add the right hand in Wait mode. The piece lasts under a minute, so replay it 5 times in a row, then switch to scored Scrolling to track your progress.
Open The Blue Danube (main theme) in Pianovera: the notes fall toward an 88-key virtual piano keyboard, each hand gets its color, and Wait mode is there if you're starting out.
Try Pianovera for freeDownload The Blue Danube MIDI and sheet music
Two files are waiting for you: The Blue Danube piano MIDI file (2 KB, opens in Pianovera or any MIDI player) and The Blue Danube piano sheet music PDF (163 KB, printable). Both come from the same engraving: what you read on the score is exactly what you hear in the preview.
The work itself is in the public domain. This MIDI engraving comes from the Mutopia Project, typeset by Nikos Kouremenos, under the CC-BY-SA 4.0 license (free reuse with attribution, commercial included).
About this piece
Is The Blue Danube hard to play on piano?
We rate it beginner: 247 notes over 0:39, spanning B2 to C6. The first thing to work on: the waltz bass, with its low note and 2 light chords.
Where can I get the sheet music for The Blue Danube?
Right on this page: the "View the sheet music" button opens the PDF (163 KB), engraved by the Mutopia Project from the same source as the MIDI file, CC-BY-SA 4.0 license. View it, print it, keep it.
Is The Blue Danube MIDI file really free?
Yes. Johann Strauss II died more than 70 years ago, so the work (1867) is public domain. This MIDI engraving is under the CC-BY-SA 4.0 license: free to use, commercially included, with credit to Nikos Kouremenos.