Moonlight Sonata or Claro de Luna (in Spanish) is one of the most popular and recognizable classical pieces composed by Ludwig Van Beethoven. This piece comes from his work, Piano Sonata No. 14 (Opus 27, No. 2) and is the first of the three movements in the sonata also known as Adagio Sostenuto.

The sheet music covered here is based on Francisco Tárrega’s guitar arrangement of this song. However, some edits have been made for ease of reading in a modern context.

Grab your guitar and let’s get started!

Music symbols to know for this piece

Here is a review of some of the musical symbols used in this piece. Also, if needed, here is a guide to understanding music symbols.

sempre pp = very quiet (throughout the piece)

p = piano (quiet) (slightly louder than pp)

> = Decrescendo (gradually play softer)

> = Decrescendo (gradually play softer). Also written above the music as “Descresc”

< = Crescendo (gradually play softer). Also written above the music as “Cresc”

/ or \ = diagonal lines between two notes represent a slide (only pick the first note and slide/move your fretting finger to the next note).

= fermata (sustain the note, longer than the length of the note indicated at the performer’s discretion)

Note on barre chord symbols

You might see barre chords written as C.1, C.2, etc… to represent the Spanish word “cejilla” which means barre. I replace this with B.1, B.2, etc… to represent a barre on a certain fret.

Note that these symbols don’t always require barring all strings, so check the notation to see which string the barre starts on. The dashed lines indicate how long to hold each barre.

There are also some instances where a partial barre is played with the second finger within a chord.

Moonlight Sonata guitar arrangement with tabs

Note that the repeating rhythmic pattern in the arrangement is a triplet for every beat. Also, this arrangement is in drop D tuning, meaning you have to lower your 6th string (low E) to a D note.

By the way, you can get the PDF of this song below.

To learn other songs by Francisco Tárrega, check out Adelita, Gran Vals, Lágrima, Malagueña or Recuerdos de la Alhambra.

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Want to learn more songs? Check out the sheet music with guitar tabs resource on this site.

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