Green notes: right hand, blue notes: left hand. 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.
← Swipe the image to read the score →Beginning of the score, engraved by the Mutopia Project.View the whole score (PDF) →
Tchaikovsky wrote his Album for the Young with his nephews in mind, and this march is its little mechanical jewel: an army of wooden soldiers parading stiff and proud through forty seconds of clockwork MIDI.
For a beginner it's a gold mine: everything is three-note chords, hands together, in a march rhythm impossible to miss. The piece teaches clean chord placement, playing soft and crisp at once, and holding military tempo without accelerating. Kids adore it. So do adults.
The March of the Wooden Soldiers: the first notes
Right hand, in letter names (C4 = middle C): D5 D5 B4 A#4 B4 C#5 D5 D5 B4 A#4 B4 C#5 D5 E5 F#5 F#5 G5 F#5 E5 D5 E5 D5 D5 B4… The rest scrolls in the preview above, with the fingering, and the sheet music PDF has the whole piece.
Play the March of the Wooden Soldiers on the virtual piano
Here are the virtual piano notes for the March of the Wooden Soldiers, in computer keyboard letters: the first 16 bars of the melody. One key per note, read left to right; dark keys are the sharps, and a thin line marks each bar.
Letters for a QWERTY keyboardYour keyboard: 42 notes
OOU7U9OOU7U9
OP==]=POP
OOU7U9OOU7U9
OP==PO9UY
▶ Play on the virtual pianoThe piano opens with this piece loaded: the key to play lights up and waits for you.
What you'll be working on
Three-note chords placed cleanly together
Wooden-soldier staccato: dry, light, regular
A near-constant piano dynamic, precision makes the effect
Zero acceleration: the clockwork never runs away
Playing the March of the Wooden Soldiers on piano with Pianovera
In Pianovera's Wait mode, check that all three notes of each chord land exactly together: on screen a clean chord forms one aligned block. Forty seconds, full A·B loop, ten repetitions and it's learned.
Open March of the Wooden Soldiers 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. On a PC, it's falling notes piano software for Windows, with video export up to 4K.
Free, with no time limit and no ads: 30 pieces (10 in full, 20 in a simplified version), the first 10 lessons and 10 minutes of 3D hands (then 15 seconds per piece). Premium opens all 651 pieces.
Download the March of the Wooden Soldiers MIDI and sheet music
The work itself is in the public domain, and this MIDI engraving was placed in the public domain by its typesetter on the Mutopia Project. Use it freely, videos included.
About this piece
Is the March of the Wooden Soldiers hard to play on piano?
We rate it beginner: 318 notes over 0:40, spanning A3 to G5. The first thing to work on: three-note chords placed cleanly together.
Where can I get the sheet music for the March of the Wooden Soldiers?
Right on this page: the "View the sheet music" button opens the PDF (302 KB), engraved by the Mutopia Project from the same source as the MIDI file, Public domain license. View it, print it, keep it.
Is the March of the Wooden Soldiers MIDI file really free?
Yes. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky died more than 70 years ago, so the work (1878) is public domain. This MIDI engraving is public domain too: download it and use it freely, videos included.
