Prelude in C Piano Visualizer
Bach's Prelude in C major, BWV 846, as falling notes on a glowing keyboard. Restyle it and export the video, or drop your own recording or MIDI file.
Prelude in C at a glance
- Work
- Prelude in C major, BWV 846, from The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I
- Composer
- Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
- Composed
- Book I completed in 1722
- Published
- 1801 (first printed edition of the book)
- Key
- C major
- Tempo
- No marking; usually played at a calm, steady pace
- Difficulty
- Early intermediate
- The demo plays
- The first half of the prelude, 61 s
What you see in the falling notes
Every bar is the same shape played twice: a chord broken from the bottom up, with the lowest notes held. On the keyboard it falls as a regular staircase of notes, and you can watch the harmony change bar by bar as the steps move.
- 304notes
- 5.0notes per second on average
- 6notes in the busiest second
- 4notes sounding at once, at most
- G2 to A539 keys from the lowest note to the highest
- 22%of the notes below middle C, in the left-hand colour
Counted from the MIDI file of the demo excerpt (61 s). The sustain pedal goes down 19 times.
About Prelude in C
The prelude opens The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I, which Bach completed in 1722: a prelude and fugue in every major and minor key, written to show that one keyboard tuning could play them all. The book circulated in handwritten copies for decades and was first printed in 1801.
The prelude is made of one idea, a broken chord repeated in each bar while the harmony slowly moves. Over a century later Charles Gounod improvised a melody over it, which became the famous "Ave Maria" of Bach and Gounod.
MIDI of the demo: Bernd Krueger, piano-midi.de, CC BY-SA 3.0 DE. Videos made from it carry the same credit and licence (terms). How to make one: step by step.
Famous pieces in falling notes
Frequently Asked Questions
No, but it is the accompaniment of it. Charles Gounod improvised a melody over this prelude, published in the 1850s and later sung to the Latin "Ave Maria". The demo plays Bach's prelude alone.
Early intermediate. Every bar uses the same broken-chord pattern, so the notes are easy to learn; the art is in keeping it perfectly even and shaping the harmony.
Yes. The composition is in the public domain, but the MIDI file of this demo is by Bernd Krueger (piano-midi.de) under CC BY-SA 3.0 DE, so a video made from it has to credit him, for example "MIDI: Bernd Krueger, piano-midi.de, CC BY-SA 3.0 DE", and be shared under the same licence. With your own recording or MIDI file of the piece, only your rights to that file count.
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