Bach in March WEEK 1: Practice Updates
Dear Pianists,
Welcome again to Bach in March! Bach is the composer closest to me and I can't wait to share this March with you in practicing Bach. This is the thread where we'll all be posting our biweekly updates for this month's community challenge.
For those who have been here before - you may post video or audio updates just as you did in Discovering Schubert Month! And for those who are new - uploading a video to youtube is often the best way to go! You can then post the youtube link to your video, or embed it directly in your reply.
The introduction and welcome to Bach in March will give you orientation for the community challenge activities, and provide you with a schedule of relevant livestreams, performance opportunities, and repertoire suggestions.
I'm always curious to hear about your practice experience and encourage you to write replies. If you can't think of where to start, here are some questions to jog your mind:
- What piece did you choose? How did you learn about it?
- What's a favorite passage of yours in the piece?
- What's one musical or technical decision you made while practicing your piece?
Feel free to make these updates as short or long as you wish!
Happy Bach Sounds!
Hilda
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Hi, I love the idea of Bach month. I’ve been working on Prelude and Fugue in C sharp major from book 2 WTC. I often play preludes but run out of steam in learning the fugues but I am determined to learn both this time. Maybe choosing one with 7 sharps was a bit ambitious but am enjoying the challenge! The prelude reminds me of the book 1 Cmajor and the fugue in 3 parts is quite nice and tuneful. It’s far from perfect but here is my video of the C# major
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Hilda Huang I live in Scotland so I have a local 2nd hand music shop here in Glasgow which sells sheet music and recordings. I have picked up many useful scores there. Not sure I’ve heard of historical fingerings before. I did notice my old Mozart sonata edition favours changing fingers on passages with many repeated notes. I wondered if that was an old convention because when I watched modern famous pianists performances not many seemed to do that. I found it quite useful though in some but not all passages.
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I am excited to participate in this Bach challenge. Coincidentally, I started learning my first Bach piece (besides the Minuets) a month ago - Bach's Invention #1 in C major. I had heard about Bach's Inventions and Sinfonias, but felt I wasn't experienced enough to give them a try. They my teacher suggested I try them. I was SO excited!! I felt like "Wow! I'm now good enough to play Bach!!" Well, be careful what you wish for. Invention #1 broke my head for about 2 weeks. It's still a work in progress. Check it out here... (without ornaments)
I am open to any and all suggestions. :)
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Randi I think it's quite good. as just need more time on practising, then you will be good in that piece.
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Randi Coming along nicely. There was a very interesting live stream on this last year on tonebase: https://app.tonebase.co/piano/live/player/bach-invention-1-ben-laude
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Randi Definitely you're good enough to play bach!!
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Brett Gilbert Thanks for that. I will check it out!
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Hilda Huang Thank you for the encouragement. It helps to have professional eyes on what I do. :)
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I'm going to do Goldberg variations for this challenge. maybe the aria plus the first 3 variations.
I watched Martin's intro to video editing, and recorded audio (from silent feature) and video separately and then I put together with Davinci! Took me a long time, but next time will be faster:) I hope sound quality is a little better!
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Qingzhi Beautiful and the sound quality was great too!
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Vidhya Bashyam thank you!
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Qingzhi That is lovely!
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Qingzhi Sound beautiful, Qingzhi!
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Qingzhi congrats for able to play this 1st 2 pages. I got to stop after first half of the page. Reason: can't breath at all due to those ornaments.
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CK thank you! yes there are lots of ornaments. Maybe it is because I listened to it many times, that the ornaments became part of the melody line but it might not be a good thing to be influenced much by recording when first learning a piece. You could also try to play without the ornaments, and add them later.
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Qingzhi Sounds beautiful. I love the mirror effect of the way you filmed it too :)
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Qingzhi nice, thanks so much for sharing the video
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Introducing my fingers to the E-minor Partita… Any suggestions for intelligent fingering for the left hand in bars 11 & 12 will be highly appreciated
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Andrea Buckland Very pretty already!
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Vidhya Bashyam thank you, Vidhya! I love the piece but it’s long. Not sure if I can accomplish it in these weeks. I somehow always chose pieces that need a lifetime
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Andrea Buckland Beautiful!!!
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Brother Will Green Thank you , Brother Will! Such a joy to practice Bach!
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Andrea Buckland Very good job, Andrea! I love this partita!
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Juan Carlos Olite Thank you, Juan Carlos! So do I!
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Andrea Buckland here's my funky fingering.... 4-2-1-2-1-2-1-3- ( repeat ) - 5-1-2-1-2-3-1-3-4-5-4-2-1-4-1. I did it to maximize control. Another option is 4-3-2-1-etc, with the thumbs on the black keys... not super elegant but it certainly works!
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Hilda Huang Many many thanks, Hilda! Will try both versions and see what feels better.
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