Wenn wir in höchsten Nöten sein, BWV 641, by J. S. Bach
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Get the practice plan for Wenn wir in höchsten Nöten sein, BWV 641
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- Hear it through at Slow (20 bpm). Open it in the reader, choose Slow, and follow the page with your eyes without playing. As it plays, count 4 to the bar.
- Learn the right hand of bars 1 to 8 on its own, in G major. Say the note names out loud the first time through, then play it three times without stopping.
- Learn the left hand of the same bars on its own. Keep it quiet and even: it is the floor the tune stands on.
- Put hands together at Slow, 20 bpm. Bars 1 to 8 only. Stop after every wrong note and play that bar again before moving on.
- Move up to Steady (30 bpm) once Slow feels easy three times in a row. Then learn the next 8 bars the same way: right hand, left hand, together.
- Play the whole piece (about 2 minutes) from the start, at whatever speed keeps it going. A steady run with a few slips beats a fast one that stops.
About this piece
Nine bars from the Orgelbüchlein, arranged for piano from the organ original. The hymn tune is dressed in florid decoration at the top, with little runs and turns spilling around each note, while three plainer voices keep a calm chordal support. Late in life Bach returned to this same melody for Vor deinen Thron tret ich hiermit, BWV 668.
How to play it
Find the plain hymn notes inside the decorated top line and lean on them slightly so the tune shows through the ornaments. Keep the lower voices soft and legato, and do not let the fast runs push the tempo.
Reading it, and printing it
The score opens in Artform's reader, which shows the music as engraved notation and plays it back so you can hear the line before you try it. You can slow the tempo down, loop a passage that is not working yet, and print the page when you would rather have paper on the stand.
The file itself is MusicXML, which MuseScore, Sibelius, Finale and Dorico all open, so the notes are yours to keep whatever you read them in.
Edition: Mutopia Project #1174, licensed CC BY-SA. Converted to MusicXML by Artform and checked note for note against the original.
More free J. S. Bach sheet music
Who J. S. Bach was
German composer and organist of the late Baroque, born into a family that had produced musicians for generations, so much so that "Bach" was practically the local word for musician. As a teenager he once walked 250 miles to hear the organist Buxtehude play, then overstayed his leave from his job by weeks because he couldn't tear himself away. Most of his career was spent as a church employee in Leipzig, turning out a new cantata almost every week for years while raising twenty children and occasionally landing in jail after arguing with his employer. Out of that unglamorous working life came The Well-Tempered Clavier, the Brandenburg Concertos, and a command of counterpoint so complete that …
Learn the music behind it
Reading a piece and understanding it are different skills. If you want the harmony under this one, the chord trainer teaches chords the way songs use them, and the scale pages cover the fingering for every key, including G major.