J.S. Bach

Works by Johann Sebastian Bach in alternative music notation systems.

 

Two Part Inventions

The following sheet music for piano is available in Express Stave (PDF format) and was created using Finale:

 

Prelude 1 (Book 1) from the Well-Tempered Clavier

Here is the J. S. Bach Prelude 1 (Book 1) from the Well-tempered Clavier, transposed into all 12 keys and notated in Express Stave (ES) by John Keller using Finale.

This famous piece is originally in C major. Here it is presented with exactly the same layout on all 12 pages, but starting in F major (a perfect 4th or 5 semitones higher than C) and progressing successively downward by semitones. The original key of C major is on page 6.

By viewing the PDF file and using Page Down and Page Up controls, you can see how the intervals comprising each chord are invariant while the black/white notehead color fluctuates, according to the key signature. (Page Down takes you down in pitch.)

 

Two Part Invention 9

The next file was created using John Keller’s Finale method, and it shows Bach’s Two Part Invention 9 (F minor, BWV 780) in the following five notation systems:

  • Express Stave (Keller)
  • Black Triangle Twinline (Reed, var Keislar)
  • 6-6 Tetragram (Parncutt)
  • Quasi-Isomorph (Wojcik, var Keller)
  • Traditional Notation

The files below were created by Kevin Dalley using Lilypond notation software, and in some cases are first-step approximations towards their respective notation systems.

See Kevin Dalley’s LilyPond Code and his website kelphead.org for more info.