For music that sends chills down your spine, look no further! Here are more than a dozen spooky picks for Early Elementary up to Late Intermediate. Each piece is ideal for a special, themed performance.
Hauntingly beautiful with catchy rhythms and harmonic twists and turns, your students will play these frightfully well! The titles are irresistible, too, like Haunted Music Box, Orange Cat Black Cat, Gargoyle’s Night Out and Black Light.
If you or your students don’t ‘do’ Hallowe’en, no sweat. These pieces aren’t about Hallowe’en specifically, they only hint at creepy thoughts and images.
Note: I have designed this blog post so that you can listen to the YouTube performances and read the music at the same time.
Pick #1 Spinning a Web — Primer Rote
Spinning a Web is a delicate ‘impressionist’ pattern rote piece for Beginner piano. It features a four-note pattern which repeats up the piano, a ‘spinning’ rhythm and doesn’t require any reading. Written to be played non-legato to develop good technique. The changing harmonies in the teacher part offer a rich soundscape.
Spinning a Web is available as a studio-licensed eSheet.
Pick #2 Bones, Bones, Old Bones! — Preparatory A
Every child can be a hero in this piece, being the discoverer of old bones! While the music centres in the middle of the keyboard and staff, it gives the Elementary piano student a chance to play the LH away from the middle C position. Dynamics enhance the storytelling, as do details like staccato and legato. At the end, the RH travels up the keyboard with notes in octaves that are easy to learn by rote.
Bones, Bones Old Bones is available as a studio-licensed eSheet!
Pick #3 Sneak Attack — Preparatory B
It’s fun to surprise and be surprised! Sneak Attack develops storytelling and helps students play with imagination. In a story about sneaking, what do you think the staccatos represent? When the music gets louder or softer, how do these dynamics help build suspense and surprise?
Sneak Attack is available as a studio-licensed eSheet!
Pick #4 Sneaky Skeleton Pranks — Level 2
Are you in for a spooky prank? Here’s a game-like rote and note piece that explores black and white key patterns, cross hand slurs and staccato, simple pedalling and hand-over-hand playing.
Sneaky Skeleton Pranks is available as a studio-licensed eSheet!
Pick #5 The Sleepover — Level 2
Here’s a piano thriller that tells the story of a creepy sleepover. Explores storytelling with ad lib trills, dynamics, accents, shaping two-note slurs and hand-over-hand movement across the keyboard.
The Sleepover is available as a studio-licensed eSheet!
Pick #6 Orange Cat, Black Cat — Level 2
Written to the rhythm of a poem about every kind of irresistible cat (or cat phrase) I could think of, A playful piece in e minor, Orange Cat, Black Cat explores graceful movements of the cats in the two-note slurs and the mischievous leaps and antics in the staccatos and semitones.
- What makes it easy: Much of the music repeats.
- The challenge: Shaping the two-note slurs to sound ‘more’ on the first note and ‘less’ on the second while playing hands together.
- What makes it spooky: Minor second (semitone/half step) intervals that highlight the e minor harmonic scale and chromatic passages.
Orange Cat, Black Cat is available as an eSheet and as part of the Red Leaf Pianoworks Anthology, Volume I, Sprouts.
Pick #7 Ghost Train — Level 2
With a steady pulse in the left hand fifths imitating the regular rhythm of a train on the tracks, the chromatic nature of the right hand figures give a ghostly atmosphere to this piece.
Ghost Train is available in Making Tracks from the CNCM.
Pick #8 Haunted Music Box — Level 3
A piece of exquisite beauty, Haunted Music Box is written for the piano’s highest range. A chilling piano piece in the anime soundtrack style. Explores d minor key signature, 3/4 time signature, long melodic phrases and wrist lifts on single keys played by finger 3.
- What makes it easy: Hands take turns playing the music of interest and simply holding notes.
- The challenge: Playing expressively within the soft dynamic range.
- What makes it beautiful: As the harmonies take unexpected turns, the music surprises and always sounds fresh.
Haunted Music Box is available as an eSheet or as part of the print and eBook piano collection Rock That Train.
Pick #9 You Better Run — Level 4
Here’s a piano thriller with swift flight on the piano. Explores broken legato fifths, black and white key interplay and chromatic passages.
You Better Run is available as a studio-licensed eSheet!
Pick #10 Gargoyle’s Night Out — Level 5
Mostly in the piano’s low register, Gargoyle’s Night Out is about a little stone creature escaping his rooftop for a night on the town. What do you think he’s doing in the B section waltz?
- What makes it easy: The rhythm is easy to learn. Measures repeat.
- The challenge: The piece has fun, creepy intervals that can be challenging to learn at first. But it’s worth it!
- What makes it creepy: Emphasized accents, the driving beat and in the B section, the chromatic melody.
Gargoyle’s Night Out is available as an eSheet and as part of the Red Leaf Pianoworks Anthology, Volume II, Saplings.
Pick #11 Black Light — Level 5
With delicate dissonances and harmonic twists and turns, Black Light is a journey like the wind in the night. It ends up far from whence it came.
- What makes it easy: The rhythm is straightforward and follows a pattern. Even at level 4, you could teach the tricky parts by rote.
- The challenge: As a kid I found accidentals daunting to read, so I’ll pick that as the challenge. Also, being fluent and expressive.
- What makes it creepy: The dissonances and the fact that you never know what’s going to happen next. The unknown is a bit creepy.
Black Light is available as an eSheet or as part of the piano collection part of the print and eBook The Color Collection.
Pick #12 Mystery Bay — Level 5
Imagine a mysterious tree-covered island shrouded in mist. On the surface all might appear to be safe and normal, but lurking beneath is a gut feeling that you just can’t shake – a foreboding sense that something is wrong. What happens next is limited only by your imagination. What kind of secret does Mystery Bay hold? A natural phenomenon? International espionage? A murder mystery? In this piece, revel in the long lines and dynamic surprises that create delicious suspense.
Mystery Bay is available as a studio-licensed eSheet!
Pick #13 Midnight Mind Game — Level 6
Sometimes our minds play tricks on us in the middle of the night!
Midnight Mind Game is available in the collection Branches and as a studio-licensed eSheet.
Pick #14 The Hanging Tree — Level 6
What is scarier than a hanging tree?
The Hanging Tree is available as an eSheet and as part of the piano collection Madge’s Notebook, A Piano Tribute to The Hunger Games.
It’s easy to get this music!
For eSheets, visit the Halloween page on my shop.
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Video of the Week
Thinking ahead to Christmas? Here’s a jazzy, swing version of Jingle Bells for Level 2! It’s available in the print and eBook Old MacDonald had the Blues and as the Jingle Bell Swing Licensed eSheet!
