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Bach wrote the “Bourrée in E minor” in the first decades of the 18th century. It was originally written for lute, the stringed instrument that eventually evolved into the modern guitar. “Bourrée in E minor” is well known among modern classical guitarists, but the melody might not be familiar to you. It’s not a piece that gets a lot of play outside of classical music circles.
A bourrée is a type of dance that originated in France, but despite the name of the piece, Bach didn’t really intend it to be a tune for the party circuit. “Bourrée in E minor” is part of a suite, a collection of pieces of music that were all written in the style of various dances but which were meant to be performed for a seated audience, not a dance hall.
The musical suite in the 17th and 18th centuries was one of the precursors to the modern symphony. Rather than movements, a suite could include pieces for one of several types of dance – allemande, courante, sarabande, gigue, minuet, gavotte, passepied, bourrée – all of which sound a lot cooler than “first movement,” “second movement,” etc. I’m not sure why they changed it.
“Bourrée in E minor” Playing Tips
This is a fairly faithful adaptation of the melody of “Bourrée in E minor,” at least the first 16 measures of it. The original has a final 8 bars that I chose not to include here. That’s partly because I like to post pieces that can fit on a single page, but it’s also because those final 8 bars don’t have a strong connection to the first 16 bars melodically (at least to my uneducated ears). I find this abbreviated version more pleasant, even if it doesn’t have a strong concluding bar.
Despite being in 4/4 time, the piece plays a bit like a series of off-kilter triplets. The patter of “1/8th note – 18/th note – 1/4 note” is establish in the first measure, and it repeats almost exclusively throughout the rest of the piece, no doubt setting the rhythm nicely for the bourrée.
My best advice for learning this one is to look up a recording of the original and give it a listen. It can seem tricky until you get the rhythm in your head. After that, it’s mostly a matter of focusing on keeping your hand in a pretty strict first position.
Do keep in mind that I’ve had to transpose this to C (Am) to get it to work well on ukulele, so while you can listen to recordings to get the feel for the piece, you won’t be able to play along, unfortunately.
Click the link or the ‘Download’ button below to see the sheet music if your browser doesn’t display the embedded PDF.
“Bourrée in E minor” Low G Sheet Music Download
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