Bach's Prelude in C
No tune, no drama: just one broken chord, bar after bar, and it sounds like heaven. Bach's Prelude in C major, BWV 846 (1722), the first piece of The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I, has 35 bars, and almost every bar is one chord broken into the same shape. Learn the pattern, read its slash chords as inversions (Dm7/C, G7/B), see each chord on the circle, and hear why it sings with no melody at all: the top notes move by step and every voice moves as little as possible. Then hear the dominant pedal on G and the tonic pedal on C that end it, and play bars 1–4 and your own loop C – Am – F – G7 the Bach way.
In this lesson you'll
- Play the prelude's broken-chord pattern (a low note, a middle note, then three upper notes, twice, and the whole shape twice per bar) on bars 1–4: C, Dm7/C, G7/B, C.
- Read slash chords as inversions: Dm7/C is D F A C with the seventh in the bass (third inversion), G7/B is G B D F with the third in the bass (first inversion), so the bass stays close to home: C, C, B, C (lessons 14 and 16).
- Hear why it sings without a melody (the top line E, F, F, E moves by step; every voice moves by a step or not at all) and play your own loop C – Am – F – G7 in the same pattern, keeping the common notes.
Music in this lesson
- Prelude in C major, BWV 846 (The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I)J.S. Bach · 1722 · in C (public domain; bars 1–4 played)
- Ave Maria (Bach/Gounod)Charles Gounod · 1853 (named only; melody not played)
Remember
One pattern, one chord per bar: Bach's Prelude in C (BWV 846, 1722), the first piece of The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I, has 35 bars, and almost every one breaks a single chord into the same shape.
The slash names the bass: Dm7/C and G7/B are inversions (seventh in the bass, third in the bass) that keep the bass close to home while the harmony moves I – ii7 – V7 – I.
There is no melody: the top note of each chord moves by step and every voice moves as little as possible (voice leading); near the end a dominant pedal on G builds tension and a tonic pedal on C brings it home. In 1853 Charles Gounod wrote his Ave Maria over it.