  We explore the competition and coupling of vibrational and electronic
contributions to the heat capacity of Al and Al$_3$Sc at temperatures below 50
K combining experimental calorimetry with highly converged finite temperature
density functional theory calculations. We find that semilocal exchange
correlation functionals accurately describe the rich feature set observed for
these temperatures, including electron-phonon coupling. Using different
representations of the heat capacity, we are therefore able to identify and
explain deviations from the Debye behaviour in the low-temperature limit and in
the temperature regime 30 - 50 K as well as the reduction of these features due
to the addition of Sc.
