Johanna Speaks

Today I am going to be talking about Johann Sebastian Bach. Johann is a famous composer. He composed lots of classical music. For one thing, I didn't know his first name was Johann! You say it like this ( yo..han). If you add an (a) to it, it's my name! Johanna. 

Here are some facts about Johann Sebastion Bach:

Johann was born in Eisenach, Germany, on March 21, 1685. His father, Johann Ambrosius Bach, was the director of the town musicians, and his family included teachers, composers, church organists, and court musicians. After his parent's death, the 10-year-old Johann Sebastian Bach moved in with his eldest brother, Johann Christoph Bach, the organist at St Michael's church in Ohrdruf. Johann Christoph instructed him on the Clavichord and exposed him to the works of great composers of the time. 

Bach was very skillful and talented and would explore different harmonies and foreign styles in his works. He believed that " The aim and end of all music should be none other than the glory of God and the refreshment of the soul." 

Bach married twice and had twenty children, four of which followed in his footsteps and went on to have a musical career, honoring the family tradition. 

Also, in 1717 he challenged harpsichordist Louis Marchand to a keyboard duel. Marchand accepted but quickly realized he would suffer a humiliating defeat and opted not to show up on the contest day. 

Here is some music he composed:

I got a binder that I can put my music in! I got it from Mrs.Orr! Mrs.Orr is a lady who plays piano at our church. She is a super good pianist! And she sings while she is playing the piano. She even helped out as a singing director a long time ago for a choir! Anyways, she just returned from going on a vacation with her husband, and they have been gone for a month. In the meantime, I have been playing violin for the church while Abbygail ( the one who usually plays violin) plays the piano. She is a really good piano player and violin player. And Nick is playing guitar. So when Mr. and Mrs.Orr came back, Abbygail went back to the violin. And now Abbygail and I will be playing violin together for church. We did play some songs for bible study last night on Tuesday. That went great, but I got confused with the music, and there was a three-padge song! So I couldn't put all the pages on one music stand fast, but Abbygail could, though! 

And Mrs.Orr saw that I was struggling to put the music on the music stand fast enough that she gave me a binder so I could put all the songs in and flip the page to go to a different song fast. I said, "Thank you so much! This will be super helpful!".

I am super happy that I got to have a binder! I printed out a music drawing and slipped it on the front of the binder. It now looks really cool! 

Here are pictures of the binder:

Tuesday I got a violin from the Music Connection store in redding! I have always wanted a violin!! So on Sunday night, I made my own contract and wrote down why I want a violin! And I had a talk with my mom that night and told her if she would please sign here to get me a violin. :) She said she would think about it. And the next day was Monday and I asked if she had talked with dad about it and if I could get it. She said that maybe tomorrow (which would be Tuesday) after we watch Mrs.M who we watch every Tuesday we can go to the Music Connection and rent a violin. I was super excited!! The rent to own is what we wanted to do. So every month for us to rent a violin would be twenty-five dollars. That twenty-five dollars would be going to the violin's cost if we ever wanted to buy it at the end of six months. So my mom said that if I wanted to still stick with playing the violin after six months then she said I could buy it. 

The same day I got the violin I heh accidentally broke one of the violin strings and the bridge on the violin fell off. That all happened because I was trying to tune it! But it is normal for that to happen. And I feel like the string that I broke on the violin can be reached somehow. But I have no idea how to do that. So I am not going to touch it because if I do I might break another thing! So on Sunday, I wanted to take my violin to church because we are friends with somebody who has a daughter that plays violin and I wanted to ask her if she knew how to fix it or help me with it. I also have a sister-in-law who is a super good violinist but she lives in sacermento. But she sent me a video on how to tune my violin. That was super helpful! And I was thinking of doing online violin classes so she could teach me some violin from zoom or something. The Music Connection store can fix the violin probably for free but I know that is going to be looking pretty bad if I take it in a couple of days later after I rented it saying I broke something on the violin already. So I hope our friend at church can fix or help me with the violin. 

Here is a picture of the violin before I broke some stuff off of it:

It’s a beautiful violin!!