Can-Can (Galop infernal)
Jacques Offenbach (1819–1880) · sheet music
- Time 4/4
- Levels 1–3
- Passages 5
Your turn · both hands
Preparing your passage…
Jacques Offenbach, French (German-born) romantic (1819–1880). The reading release has 5 passages from this piece at levels 1–3; the reader above opens on the easiest, bars 7–8 for the right hand alone.
The hardest stretch is bars 1–4 at level 3.
Your practice path
Learn it the way teachers do: each hand on its own, then together, then the hard bars. Each step is a real graded passage of Can-Can (Galop infernal).
- Right hand alone · bars 7–8 level 1
- Left hand alone · bars 11–16 level 3
- Hands together · bars 1–4 level 3
How to play Can-Can (Galop infernal)
- Count a brisk two beats per bar; even when you practice slowly, keep a bouncing, dance-like feel rather than playing every note the same weight.
- The right hand repeats the same note several times in a row; keep the finger close to the key and let it bounce lightly, rather than lifting the whole hand for each repeat.
- The left hand usually plays simple bass notes on the beat, so read it as a steady pulse and keep it under the melody, saving the louder sound for the tune.
- Practice with a metronome in short phrases, starting slowly and raising the speed a little at a time; stop increasing as soon as the repeated notes become uneven.
Structure
The galop is a fast, high-kicking dance in a quick two-beat meter. Its main tune is built from short, repeated rhythmic cells, and it alternates with contrasting strains before coming back louder and faster. It lasts only a couple of minutes, and many listeners know it from the concert overture to the operetta, which ends with the same tune.
About Can-Can (Galop infernal)
Orpheus in the Underworld premiered in Paris in 1858 and was Offenbach's first full-length operetta, a comic retelling of the Orpheus myth that pokes fun at the gods of Olympus. The Galop infernal comes near the end, when the gods throw a wild dance party in Hades, and the tune later became inseparable from the can-can dance of Paris music halls.
Why the first passage is level 1
That passage is level 1, the first rung: it moves by whole steps or less, in quarter-note values, in one hand.
The Can-Can comes from Offenbach's operetta Orpheus in the Underworld. Its melody repeats short, bouncing figures, which makes it an easy tune to read at a beginner level as long as you keep the quick tempo steady. Play it slowly first and let the repetitions speed you up.
Questions about Can-Can (Galop infernal)
- How hard is Can-Can (Galop infernal) to play?
- Its passages grade from level 1 to level 3 on Real Sight Reader's ten-level reading scale, which keeps all of it within beginner reading. The hardest stretch is bars 1–4 at level 3.
- Is there an easy part of Can-Can (Galop infernal) for beginners?
- Yes. Start with bars 7–8 for the right hand alone, the level-1 passage in the reader at the top of this page.
- What key and time signature is Can-Can (Galop infernal) in?
- The engraving on this page is in 4/4 time.
- Who composed Can-Can (Galop infernal)?
- Jacques Offenbach, French (German-born) romantic (1819–1880). Orpheus in the Underworld premiered in Paris in 1858 and was Offenbach's first full-length operetta, a comic retelling of the Orpheus myth that pokes fun at the gods of Olympus.
- Can I practice Can-Can (Galop infernal) online for free?
- Yes. The reader on this page plays any of the 5 graded passages from Can-Can (Galop infernal) in your browser, with an on-screen keyboard or a MIDI keyboard, and marks every note as you play. No signup.
Every passage, easiest first
The reading release grades 5 distinct passages of this piece. Open any of them in the reader:
- Level 1
- bars 7–8 right hand
- Level 3
- bars 1–4 both hands · bars 11–14 both hands · bars 11–16 left hand · bars 13–16 left hand
More pieces to sight-read
Score: public-domain engraving from the corpus (pdmx), graded by the piano-reading-v2-20261001-mutopia-ly reading release.