The 7 Best Halloween Piano Pieces for 2024

Looking for hauntingly beautiful and frighteningly exciting Halloween themed piano music for your studio? We’ve curated this diverse selection of delightfully spooky compositions, each tailored to various skill levels. From primary students to advanced players, these pieces not only enhance important technical skills, they also ignite creativity and enthusiasm for music during this most spooky of times. Whether you're preparing for a recital or simply want to add some seasonal flair to your lessons, these Halloween-themed piano selections are sure to bring some fright to your studio and inspire your students.

1 | The Glowing Jack-O'-Lantern by Elizabeth W. Greenleaf

Primary Level

This happy piece by Elizabeth W. Greenleaf celebrates the joy of Halloween and is perfect for your primary students who are reading and playing off-staff white keys. It’s particularly useful for helping students understand the difference between steps and skips as well as playing skips with different finger pairs (2/4 and 3/5). This piece also has an excellent teacher duet part. Learn more about The Glowing Jack-O'-Lantern and buy the sheet music by clicking View below.

2 | Ghosts by Mitch Grussing

Early Elementary Level

This dark and mysterious Halloween piece for early elementary students uses a C minor five-finger position without a key signature. It's ideal for students who are exploring new positions but haven’t yet learned keys as well as those who need reinforcement with accidentals, thumb crossing, staccato, and legato. This piece is best for ambitious students with a good sense of rhythm and previous exposure to 8th notes. You can learn more about Ghosts and buy the sheet music by clicking View below.

3 | Eerie Echoes by Keytress

Late Elementary Level

Keytress is one of the newest composers on Piano Music Database. Her piece, Eerie Echoes, is a captivating late elementary piano piece perfect for recitals. With its impressive-looking yet simple hand crossings, patterned 8th note rhythms and accidentals, this piece allows students to reinforce core elementary techniques with ease. The optional teacher duet enhances the dark and mysterious atmosphere with rich harmonies, making it ideal for those students who want to perform pieces that sound big, impressive, and mature. Learn more about Eerie Echoes and buy the sheet music by clicking View below.

4 | Lupus Ululat (The Wolf Howls) by Jason Sifford

Early Intermediate Level

Willis Music’s collection Strange Sounds has some of the most interesting and unique intermediate-level music and we think that Lupus Ululat (The Wolf Howls) by Jason Sifford one of best in that book! It’s an excellent Early Intermediate work that fits the bill for a scary piece that will also impress audiences at recitals. It features a tricky-sounding 8th note broken 5ths accompaniment, parallel 3rds in the right hand, lots of cross hand arpeggios, and a cadenza-like section at that end marked “Presto” that will reinforce your students’ skills with the A Minor scale and makes for quite a flashy end! You can learn more about Lupus Ululat and buy the sheet music by clicking View below.

5 | Ghost Dance by Cora Salisbury

Late Intermediate Level

If you're looking for a Halloween piece by an under-represented composer, check out this piece written by American composer and pianist Cora Salisbury. During the late 1800's and early 1900's she toured as part of a musical troupe and performed standard classical works as well as her own ragtime compositions. Only six of those rags have survived. Ghost Dance is a great Halloween piece for late intermediate students, especially those who like playing ragtime. It could serve as a great introduction to the style while also giving students the opportunity to improve their tremolos, grace notes, parallel motion, and various left hand ragtime accompaniments. Learn more about Ghost Dance and buy the sheet music by clicking View below.

6 | The Old Witch Op. 39, No. 20 by Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Advanced Level

Even Tchaikovsky has Halloween music! This exciting piece comes from Album for the Young Op. 39 and is a great Halloween piece for your advanced students looking to play dramatic standard repertoire for your Halloween recital but in a shorter form. The repeating broken chord pattern in the left hand will force students to stretch and shift quickly. That pattern then gives way to a set of challenging blocked chords against lots of fast repeated notes in the right hand. A clean and crisp staccato touch is required throughout. Learn more about The Old Witch and buy the sheet music by clicking View below.

7 | Phantoms Op. 15, No. 2 by Amy Beach

Master Level

This is definitely the hardest piece on this list and it's suitable for collegiate studies and professional use alike. It comes from Amy Beach's collection called Four Sketches and features a quote from a poem by Victor Hugo "Such fragile flowers, dead as soon as they are born." How spooky! Though the theme and title of this piece are definitely perfect for a Halloween-themed recital it actually sounds quite cheery and could serve as a break from all of the minor spookiness of your Halloween recital! Though there are many aspects that make the piece so hard to play, it's main difficulty lies in the frequent use of 16th note parallel 3rds that need to be played with a light and delicate sound. It also has lots of leaps and some tricky pedaling in order to get a full but light sound. Learn more about Phantoms and buy the sheet music by clicking View below.