WEEK 3 Practice Updates, and a harmony micro-challenge: Cadences
Dear Pianists,
We've made it to week three of Bach in March!! Some of us started sooner and others of us started later with our pieces and it's all good - progress is persistent and always available. I look forward to seeing your practice videos below if you're interested in sharing those.
A brief reminder to sign up for the interactive masterclass with me on March 31st, and a note that the community concert has been rescheduled for April 1. The Bach in March watch party will take place in early april - be on the lookout for a message from me. I'll write you if I'd like to play your video!
The Repertoire for the interactive masterclass will involve on piece from each of the following categories: A Little prelude / invention / sinfonia, a prelude and fugue, a dance suite movement, and a Goldberg variation.
Many have asked about the Goldbergs this month, and I encourage you to check out our ongoing Goldberg variations challenge. It's never too late to start, and I always suggest committing to a variation that feels within your technical capability. How do you assess whether something is right for your level? See how far you can sight read into it, at an even rhythm and slow tempo. Do you feel like your fingers can find the right notes, where your ears seek them out? Do your hands feel strong enough to play the piece? Can you already hear the piece in your head before you begin playing?
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Nico's livestream on Friday March 18 inspired me to share an idea I had with you! In pretty much all of Bach's music, cadences play an essential structural role in organizing his music.
- Where's the first cadence or a shadow of a cadence you come across in your piece?
- What about the end of the first section, or the first phrase?
If you haven't been able to make as much progress on your challenge piece, no worries: here's something much smaller, a micro-challenge!
Pick up that first cadence in your chosen piece, and play it as a chord progression! If you can, make a recording of that chord progression and compare it with you playing the piece up until that first cadence. How do they sound? Alike or Unlike? What do you take away?
I'll be back soon with an example, to help you better understand how to do this.
Hilda
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Hilda Huang I still would like to join the concert on April 1 but it all depends on the time. The link was not working for the April 1 in your message. Is the watch party be an option if I can't make it LIVE on April?
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Shaw-Jiun Wang Gotcha. The watch party will take place on April 9, but we are still scheduling that. I'll loop you in when that link goes live.
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Hi Hilda and fellow Bach-lovers!
I hope you don't mind if I pass along a couple recordings of Seymour Bernstein playing the Aria to the Goldberg Variations. He asked that I share with the tonebase community, and although he's not exactly participating in the challenge, I thought it would fit here.
The first recording was made when he was 48 (mid-1970s). The second was made recently during the pandemic, when he was 93.Enjoy!
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Ben Laude So beautiful, heartfelt and timely. Thanks for posting this. I loved his documentary and have enjoyed watching his YouTube clips after that. Great inspiration as we practice Bach.
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Ben Laude , thanks for sharing. Both versions were so beautiful and heartfelt. Coincidently, I had also escaped to Maine in the Summer of 2020. I'd do it again, but would need to find a place with a piano if I went back again.
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Ben Laude many thanks for sharing
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Ben Laude I prefer the new version. It's more direct and communicative, and freer.
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This passage in the 2nd Partita (C minor) has been the main source of struggle when it comes to the tempo here. I am not sure about the fingerings marked here and if I can understand these two measures from the point of the cadence, maybe it may help?
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Shaw-Jiun Wang I worked on this a few months ago and this is the fingering I had come up with (Henle edition) which looks the same as yours except in first measure I found it too awkward to play the Eb with thumb and reach over 2nd finger to F so modified a bit.
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Brett Gilbert Shaw-Jiun Wang These are notorious measures for all pianists!
I think that trying to understand them in terms of the relevant chords definitely helps. It's best when the hand position changes simultaneously with the harmony changes. I think it would help you could group the notes together based on what harmonies they form! the fingering per se may not change much, but I find that there can be psychological advantage to grouping the notes.
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(201) Bach Prelude No. 1 WTC Book 1 - YouTube
Here is the Prelude.
It has a hypnotic quality to it, playing this.
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Richard George Littlewood nice! You are right, it is hypnotic. I heard Adam Neiman play this as the encore after playing Liszt’s 12 Transcendental Etudes - it was the perfect choice to calm the audience after all the fireworks.
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Richard George Littlewood this the first piece I learned, at 39… I had just bought my first piano from a dealer on Coney Island Avenue in Brooklyn, a beat-up little spinet for a couple hundred dollars. He should have payed me to take it, but I was SO proud of that little piano. Thanks for bringing back the memory.
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How I admire all of you who diligently practice Bach every day! Thank you Vidya, for the suggestion to learn this piece. I love that it is written to be PLAYED, like one would PLAY a fun game that is both physically and intellectually engaging.
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Monika Tusnady Love it! You play it so well!
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Monika Tusnady Magnifique! What a great piece, sounds wonderful.
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Monika Tusnady Wow. Brava!
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Monika Tusnady what a fun performance of this echo! I find your tempo very appropriate. Brava on those echo portions in the second half, and the voice leading - some of the passages can be tongue twisters!
How do your hands feel when you play this piece?
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Vidhya Bashyam Thank you for the compliment and for the most appropriate repertoire suggestion!
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Brett Gilbert Thank you, Brett! It IS such a great little piece, isn't it?
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Hilda Huang Thank you for that comment and most especially for the question! My hands feel comfortable in the chords, especially when I think ahead about where they need to go next. However, my fingers, especially the third and fourth, feel stuck and heavy in the two-sixteenth-and-one-eigth note patterns, and don't communicate the lightness and playfulness that exists in my imagination. Is there a cure
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Monika Tusnady nice playing! Very clean. That’s a fun piece and you kept a lively pace!
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Susan Rogers thank you! I wonder if I’ll have time for a second, improved version - it’s always a joy to incorporate the bits of learning that happen after we’ve posted a video!
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Monika Tusnady Wonderful playing, Monika! It makes me want to dance!
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Monika Tusnady well-played! Thanks for showing your hands close-up… on frappe les touches avec fermeté mais aussi avec souplesse… Je peux en tirer des leçons.
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