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Can-Can - Piano Sheet Music (Easy Version, Galop Chorus)

Jacques Offenbach (1819-1880) 1858 G major 2/4 Easy 0:16 Both hands

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Everybody knows the Can-Can: it is the tune of the Galop infernal from Offenbach's Orpheus in the Underworld, the wild dance the gods throw at the end of the opera. This page gives you the chorus that the singers belt out to it, "Ce bal est original", arranged for piano in G major, with the tune in the right hand and a bass note and its fifth in the left. The right hand moves mostly by step in short eighth notes, with one jump up an octave. Press Listen to catch the bounce, then practise it in Practice mode at a calm tempo: the Can-Can sounds best when every note is even and light.

How to play it

How to play Can-Can on the piano

Right hand

Most of the tune lives in five notes, A B C D E, with the thumb on the A above middle C. Bar 1 is a long G, bars 2 to 6 stay in that A position, and bar 7 jumps from G up an octave for G-F#-E before bar 8 runs back down D-C-B-A.

Left hand

Two quarter notes per bar: G and D for a G chord, D and A for a D7 chord. The pattern changes every bar or two, always between those two pairs.

Tricky passages

Bar 7: the jump from the G above middle C to the G an octave higher, then straight down F#-E. Practise just that bar with the loop. Bar 15 (G D A B) also skips around before the final G.

Fingering

Pickup D and bar 1 G with the thumb. Bars 2 to 6: A C B A is 1-3-2-1, D D is 4-4, D E B C is 4-5-2-3, A A is 1-1. Bar 7: G with 1, then G F# E with 5-4-3. Bar 8: D C B A with 4-3-2-1, back in the A position.

Notes

Can-Can piano notes

The right-hand melody of this version, bar by bar, in letter names and in Do Ré Mi. Sharps are written #, flats b; a note held across a bar line is written once.

Melody: D G A C B A D D D E B C A A A C B A G G F# E D C …

BarNotesDo Ré Mi
Pickup D Ré
1 G Sol
2 A C B A La Do Si La
3 D D Ré Ré
4 D E B C Ré Mi Si Do
5 A A La La
6 A C B A La Do Si La
7 G G F# E Sol Sol Fa# Mi
8 D C B A Ré Do Si La
9 G Sol
10 A C B A La Do Si La
11 D D Ré Ré
12 D E B C Ré Mi Si Do
13 A A La La
14 A C B A La Do Si La
15 G D A B Sol Ré La Si
16 G Sol
Chords

Chords in Can-Can

The chords this arrangement holds for at least two bars, read from the score with the root in the bass. Each one opens its page: the notes, every inversion and the fingering, playable on a piano.

The piece is in G major: all the chords of the key

About the piece

About Can-Can

Orpheus in the Underworld (Orphée aux enfers), with words by Hector Crémieux and Ludovic Halévy, was first performed as a two-act opéra bouffon at the Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens in Paris on 21 October 1858. It mocks the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, and the gods of Olympus come off badly. Offenbach expanded it into a four-act version first staged in 1874; this arrangement follows the vocal score of that version.

The Galop infernal comes in the culminating scene, a party in the underworld where everyone throws themselves into the dance. In the 1890s the Paris cabarets the Moulin Rouge and the Folies Bergère adopted it as the music for the can-can, and the tune has been tied to the high-kicking dance ever since.

This transcription: Offenbach, Orphée aux enfers (1858, revised 1874), Galop infernal: the chorus "Ce bal est original" as printed in the vocal score of the 1874 version, in G major; left hand by GOONS Studio. Transcribed by GOONS Studio from the original work, which is in the public domain.

For kids: Can-Can by colors, on a rainbow piano that lights the next key and waits.

An empty cabaret stage with red velvet curtains, magenta spotlights and a grand piano in the pit
Can-Can, as imagined by GOONS Studio (AI illustration)
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In the studio

Practise with your MIDI keyboard, record your take, export MIDI

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Open Can-Can in the studio Free online piano
Questions

Can-Can on piano: frequently asked

What are the notes of the Can-Can on piano?

In G major: D, G, A C B A, D D, D E B C, A A, A C B A, G G F# E, D C B A, G - Ré, Sol, La Do Si La, Ré Ré, Ré Mi Si Do, La La, La Do Si La, Sol Sol Fa# Mi, Ré Do Si La, Sol. Every bar is in the Notes section.

What is the real name of the Can-Can music?

It is the "Galop infernal" (infernal galop) from Jacques Offenbach's Orpheus in the Underworld. It became known as the Can-Can after Paris cabarets used it for the dance in the 1890s.

Is the Can-Can easy on piano?

This version is level 2 of 5. The right hand moves mostly by step in eighth notes; the one big move is the octave jump in bar 7.