The melody enters

Lesson 5 · about 15 minutes · Moonlight bar 5: one hand plays the triplets and the tune at once

Bars 1–4 were the introduction. In bar 5 the famous melody comes in: one note, played long, then short, on the very last beat. The surprise is that there's no third hand. Your right-hand pinky plays the melody, and the other fingers keep the triplets going underneath.In the 1908 edition the melody is a separate voice in the right hand, with stems up, starting on the last beat of bar 5 as a dotted eighth plus a sixteenth on G♯. Source: Mutopia Project; scans on IMSLP. In our E-minor version the melody note is B, an octave above the thumb's B.

Today's win: play bars 4–5 with both hands, melody included, three clean runs in a row.

1 · Warm-up: bars 1–4 cold

Octave −1, left hand in the A–E position. Play the phrase once, no hints, before reading on. If bar 4 slips, that's useful to know. Tell me afterwards.

2 · Bar 5 without the melody

Bar 5 is back home: the left hand holds E with the thumb, like bar 1. The right hand plays the bar-1 shape too, with one change. The first triplet starts lower, on G:

Triplet	1	2	3	4
Right hand	G B E	B E G	B E G	B E G + melody
Fingers	1 2 4	1 2 4	1 2 3	1 2 3, pinky on top

The edition marks only the top fingers here (4, then 3) and leaves the rest to you. I filled in 1 and 2.Watch the top finger: 4, 4, then 3. Moving the top note to finger 3 frees the pinky just before it needs to play the melody. Your thumbs are close together for the first triplet: left thumb on E, right thumb on the G just above it.

Tinted: right-hand keys for bar 5. The top B is the melody, the second-highest key on your keyboard.

Right hand only, triplets only:

3 · Long–short: the melody's rhythm

Zoom in on the last beat of bar 5. Your thumb and fingers play three triplet notes in it. Count them "four-trip-let". The melody plays two notes in that same beat, and they don't line up with the triplets. Here is the beat cut into twelve equal slices, so both rhythms fit:

	four	trip	let		1
Triplets	B	E	G
Melody	B ────────── long			B short	B

One beat, 12 slices. Triplet notes fall on slices 1, 5 and 9. The short B falls on slice 10.

Long B: starts exactly on "four", together with the thumb's B. Keep the pinky down through "trip" and "let".
Short B: comes right after "let", not with it. Then there's a small gap before "1".
Land: on "1" the melody plays B again and holds. That's bar 6, so the pickup has somewhere to go.

Say it before you play it. Out loud, steady: "FOUR-trip-let-ta · ONE". Tuck the "ta" in close behind "let", like a quick echo of it, then pause briefly before "ONE". Clap on "FOUR", "ta" and "ONE". If the "ta" lands on "let", you're early. If it runs into "ONE", you're late.Why it feels odd: the triplets split the beat into 3, and the melody (a dotted eighth plus a sixteenth) splits it into 4. "let" is at ⅔ of the beat and the short B at ¾, very close together. Beethoven's notation asks for exactly this. Pianists often discuss it as "3 against 4" or "dotted rhythm against triplets".

The rhythm trainer

This time the computer plays the triplets and you play only the melody B, with your pinky on the top B (any B counts). Unlike the other drills, this one measures when you play:

Press ▶ Hear it and follow the big count. Watch "LONG", "short" and "land" go by.
Press Start. You get a one-bar count-in, then four rounds. In each one, play long on 4, short, then land on 1.
After each round the strip shows your hits: green on time, red off, with a note such as "short: with the let, wait a hair longer".
Goal: 3 of 4 rounds on time. Use Slower if it's a scramble. Once you reach the goal, try Faster.

Once the rhythm feels right, add your own triplets back. Thumb and pinky play the octave together, fingers 2 and 3 play E and G, then the pinky plays the short B. This drill checks notes only, so keep the rhythm the trainer taught you.

4 · Bar 5, both hands

5 · Bars 4–5

From bar 4 into bar 5, the left hand goes from B (finger 4) to E (thumb), and the right thumb goes from A down to G. Your eyes should already be on the G as bar 4 ends.

After three clean runs, play it away from the screen and listen: the melody B should sound a little louder than the triplets. Your keys are touch-sensitive, so press the pinky slightly firmer and the other fingers lighter.

6 · Check yourself

7 · The next three days

Tomorrow: bars 4–5 cold, then the bars 1–5 drill below. That's the whole opening so far.
Day after: bars 1–5 away from the screen, 3 times. Then play only the melody entrance 5 times, making the pinky louder than the triplets.
Day 3: the black-key name drill from lesson 4 once, then bars 1–5 very softly. Then bar 6, where the melody holds while the harmony changes under it.

Primary source: hear the melody arrive Play a recording from IMSLP. About 20 seconds in, a single note starts to stand out above the triplets, long–short. Notice how much quieter the triplets are than that note. That balance is the skill you're starting today.

Is the long–short rhythm hard to feel, does the pinky collapse when it holds the B, or are the thumbs in each other's way in triplet 1? Ask me. I'm your teacher, and that's what I'm here for.

Previous: Lesson 4 · Reference: Keyboard map · Glossary · Next: Lesson 6 (Mad World, the verse)