This is the beginner version of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Minuet in G minor from the Playground Sessions app. I learned this song as part of a non-credit adult beginner piano class and figured out how to film this at home. To film this I used a tripod and my cell phone and a Focusrite Scarlett for the MIDI file. The collage was made with canva.com and I used fiverr.com for editing the video and adding the falling notes. This is only a two-minute video, but it took hours and hours to put this together. It took hours for me to learn the song and then record the MIDI file etc. 

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) was jailed by a duke that employed him. While in jail he wrote 46 pieces. (1) Bach left a director of music position at the court of Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cöthenat due to the anti-musical sentiments of Princess Fredericka Henrietta of Anhalt-Bernburg whom Prince Leopold married in 1722. Prince Leopold was under pressure to support Prussia. Bach began working as a Cantor (music director) at Leipzig in 1722. Earlier in 1720 Bach’s wife Maria Barbara died leaving him with 4 children, and Bach remarried in 1721 to Anna Magdalena (nee) Wülken, who was a talented soprano singer. (2) Surprisingly, Bach did not write this song. Dresden Organist Christian Petzold (1677 – 1733) wrote this in a keyboard music guest notebook (meaning instruments such as the harpsichord as the piano was not invented yet) that  Bach gave to Anna Magdalena Bach in 1725. Bach put gold trimmings and her name on the clavier büchlein (which means little book in German). Composer friends of Bach would visit and write pieces in the notebook. They were used to help the Bach children learn keyboard music. (3)

Sources

(1) Alfred’s Piano 101 Notespeller Book 1 (Copyright 2019 by Alfred Music, P.O. Box 10003 Van Nuys, CA 91410-0003 alfred.com. Printed in USA. ISBN-10: 1-4706-4269-7 ISBN-13: 978-1-4706-4269-3, Gayle Kowalchyk/E. L. Lancaster)

(2) wondrium.com class Bach and the High Baroque (lecture 2, Christmas 1722, Professor Robert Greenberg, accessed June 2023, Course Guidebook Copyright © The Teaching Company, 1995, 1998)

(3) Magdalena Baczewska teaches Minuet in G from Bach’s Notebook for Anna Magdalena https://www.tonebase.co/piano  tonebase Piano YouTube Channel video published June 25, 2023, accessed August 18, 2023  https://youtu.be/5sQhT7a7IUY  

 • Magdalena Baczewska teaches Minuet in…