I have been determined to learn Minuet in G on my harp. The sheet music looks so incredibly easy, but is deceptive. I also started trying to play it long before I had developed enough technique to support this endeavor.
First, a little background. Minuet in G Major was written around 1725 and was found in the Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach. It was attributed to Johann Sebastian Bach, but I recently discovered that it is believed to have been written by Christian Petzold instead. Petzold was a German composer and organist.
Honesty, I don’t really care who wrote it. I like listening to music by Bach but have almost never enjoyed playing it. My introduction to Minuet in G Major was as a young piano student. I think this is probably required repertoir for any classical piano student. An amazing harpist named Miriam told me she first learned it on the violin. Apparently it is a favorite repertoir piece for many instruments.
My arrangement of Minuet in G Major is by Kitty M. Y. Leung. As I said previously it looked pretty simple. I noticed that there was only one left hand note per measure and a single line in the right hand. No chords. I already knew the tune so how hard could it be? What I hadn’t considered was the need for cross-overs and cross-unders to maintain a smooth line. That is not a problem for me on the piano after years of doing scales. I don’t even notice when I’m doing it most of the time. However, I started this piece with less than one year of harp experence. I still have to think about almost everything. Even worse, if your thumb position isn’t right these scalar passages don’t work well at all.
So, once I actually was able to play this with any sense of musicality I really felt like I had accomplished something. I look forward to the day when I can play Minuet in G Major as easily on the harp as I can on the piano. Here is my video. I hope you enjoy it.