Toccata in D minor: the opening in Tonic Solfa
Toccata in D minor, the opening by Johann Sebastian Bach, in Tonic Solfa (doh is F): the solfa line by line, staff notation and a piano to sing along with.
Download the solfa (PDF)A4, free to print and share with your choir
- Key
- D minor
- Doh
- F
- Time
- 4/4
- Starts on
- m (A)
- Range
- se, to m (C♯ to A, a sixth)
- Also called
- Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565
Tune Toccata in D minor by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750). Sources and licences.
The solfa
| mrm---rd | t,l,se,-l,--- |
| mrm---t,- | d-se,-l,--- |
| mrm---rd | t,l,se,-l,--- |
The solfa line by line
The same solfa as plain text, easy to copy into your own notes or a WhatsApp message to the choir. To print it, download the solfa as a PDF.
Doh is F · 4/4
Staff notation
The melody on the treble staff in D minor.
The staff is drawn here when you scroll to it.
About the tune
The Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565, is the organ music most people think of at Halloween. It survives in a copy made after Bach's death by Johannes Ringk and was first printed in 1833; it is credited to Johann Sebastian Bach, though some scholars doubt that he wrote it.
This page has only its famous opening: the turn on A and the fall to D, played three times, the second time shorter, as the Bach-Gesellschaft edition (1867) prints it. On the organ the fall is a flash of tiny notes and each time it sounds an octave lower; here it is written out at a pace a voice can sing, the turn and the run as quavers and all three times in one octave, and the pauses between them are left out.
- Music (attributed): Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750)
New to solfa? Read how to read Tonic Solfa and how to find the doh of a song.
Questions about Toccata in D minor
What is the doh of Toccata in D minor?
In this version, in D minor, doh is F. If your choir sings it in another key, doh moves to the new key note and every solfa syllable stays the same — that is what movable doh means.
What note does Toccata in D minor start on?
It starts on m (A in D minor). Find doh first, then sing up or down to m.
Is Toccata in D minor in the public domain?
Yes. Johann Sebastian Bach died in 1750; the tune was first published in 1833. Everyone named died before 1955 and it was published before 1929, so the tune is out of copyright in Nigeria, the UK, the EU and the United States. Modern arrangements of it can still be under copyright.