Bizet: Habanera from Carmen - Easy Piano Arrangement

Georges Bizet: Habanera from Carmen ("L'amour est un oiseau rebelle" / "Love is like a rebellious bird")

PDF Sheet music, piano solo
Simple Solutions piano arrangement by Henrik Kilhamn

Approximate Grade: 4
Scale 1 - 8: Beginner - Advanced

Key: D minor, same as original

The Habanera is one of the most famous opera melodies, giving Carmen a very strong first impression on the scene as she presents her view of love as a “rebellious bird.” The title references the Cuban origins of the special dotted accompaniment, and here we get to play it as a simple, scaled-down piano arrangement. This dotted ostinato up and down needs to be left intact in LH while RH sings Carmen’s confident lines, turning much of the piece into a good exercise for articulation control of legato melody against shorter accompaniment notes. The song has two verses with different text, but since the material is the same this arrangement instead employs signs of repeat, dal Segno and Coda.

This arrangement is included in Simple Solutions Volume 5 - A Burning Desire (Intermediate ~ Grade 3-5)

ABOUT SIMPLE SOLUTIONS

The Simple Solutions series came from the idea that even not-professionally trained pianists should be able to enjoy the feeling of playing great music from the piano repertoire with their own hands. This is possible with some clever rearranging of the musical material: reducing the range of independent voices and jumps while preserving core ideas of melody and rhythm. In this easier setting, you will instead have enough time on your hands (literally!) to bring the music to life and care about those aspect that often otherwise come second: phrasing, articulation, dynamics, and balance. This will help you develop your over-all musicality, which will be of great value in all other pieces as well.

In the end, if you feel ready for a challenge and want to go forward with proper piano studies that requires years of practice – you can always move on to more advanced arrangements or original piano compositions. They will always be there. In the meantime, these arrangements will bring you close to the same enjoyment as the full versions, because all musical ideas are carefully conserved.

They are just a little bit easier.