Intermediate piece
How to play Prelude in C major (BWV 846) on piano
The first prelude from Book 1 of the Well-Tempered Clavier, written around 1722. Each bar uses the same pattern of broken chords, so once you learn how one bar works, the rest follows the same shape.
- Composer
- Johann Sebastian Bach
- Level
- Intermediate
- Key
- C major
- Time signature
- 4/4
- Hands
- Both hands
What makes it tricky
- Keeping the pattern even. Play it as a pulse, not as a rush of notes.
- The chord changes every bar. Look at the chord first, then play the pattern.
- Holding the notes of the chord under your hand. Let each key stay down as long as the pattern allows.
A three-step practice plan
- Play each bar as a block chord first, then as a broken chord.
- Learn four bars a day, and play them from the start each time.
- Play slowly and even. It should sound like a flowing wave, not a staircase.