Learning Bach's Invention in C Major

This page is for Tonebase Players ( Levels 2,3,4,5) who are learning to play this beautiful piece by J S Bach. The discussion here is solely on this piece. If you are interested in discussing your strategies and practice methods please feel free to share as you deem fit. All ideas are welcome.

 

Higher level players -there are many many here on Tonebase -  who are fluent in this piece are extremely welcome to provide advice. 

I will start (my level - 2/3 maybe ? ). Heard the piece played by several renowned artists.  Read the piece a few times after that on day 1 then proceeded to do the same for a few more days - what I call the really coarse method.  Recorded the really coarse version as a checkpoint to see if the strategy is working - record again in 4 days and see if anything has changed.  After deciding this piece is perhaps playable in a few weeks/months I have adopted  a strategy and describe my  process. 

1. 1st line RH only ( actually split into 1 measure first then string the rest to a line) -use a metronome at 60 bpm to the quarter note. Play and memorize right away. Close the line and see if there is recall. 

2. Same as 1 but for LH. 

The final tempo is 120 bpm to the quarter note( it is really fast for my level - so  dropped to half speed) 

 

3. Proceed to line 2 in the score only after line 1 is reasonably accurate. Skip ornamentation in the begining.

 

4. Then play both hands together accurately - just the first line. This is quite tough in the beginning. For the first few hours nothing seemed to work.  When I hear the recording I can tell right away that something is off.
 

So far in about a week of practicing this piece everday there is a bit of progress. Quite noticeably from the recording. Need to baseline it in the next couple of days.

If there is interest in this topic I am happy to share anything I read about or come across that may be useful to anyone else learning this piece.  Feel free to post anything that you may think may be useful to others in their learning journey. If there is no interest in this topic I am happy to delete this page promptly. :-)

84 replies

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    • Peter_William
    • 4 wk ago
    • Reported - view

     Apologies for digressing into literature ( should be on another platform. This is not the right place :-) ) but getting back to the musical matter at hand.

    I got a chance to be at the piano practicing a few hours yesterday and this morning and wanted to ask you if there would be any value on posting

    - just the second page - hands together (slow tempo).

    I thought it would take several weeks but something has changed .. with the "1/2 bar.. " method but wanted to see if you would take a look at the video. Yes/no answer is fine..

    Thanks as always for taking a look at the video and suggestions.!

      • Peter_William
      • 23 hrs ago
      • Reported - view

       ok thanks for the explanation. I was just remarking about the differences in approach between Curtis and Tchaikowsky Conservatories ( of the little I understood ..). At Tchaikowsky they have almost all piano students learn to sing and play every piece from memory ! This I thought was totally astonishing. Almost 100's of hours of YT that I have watched seemed to indicate this as well ( take most of the famous ones - from either Gnessin or Tch.. Kissin, Lifshchitz, Avdeeva, ...) they are never shown reading a score, so when I saw the concert yesterday from Curtis  - presumably the same as Tch here .. - was  a bit surprised that these world class artistis in training are happily reading from a Tablet with a nice pedal ( wink wink.. I got one myself .. lol!).  Like you said I am absolutely sure without having spoken a word to any of these artists that they know the piece absolutely well from memory as well.  :-).

      The artist that I referred to from Tch. plays concertos completely from memory and he has a bank of maybe 30 concertos. or more . lol! He is not on Tonebase. He was kind enough to describe the training :-) He also said that it is common to learn a whole concerto in about a 2 weeks!. 

      • Peter_William
      • 7 hrs ago
      • Reported - view

       

      10/31/2026 update: on Bach C Maj. invention.  2 hands together.. but still work in progress ..Just 1 take and upload as is..

      https://youtu.be/x_ulQJeMWlk

      please hack.. if no improvement let me know. Need to get a better recording in a  couple of days and post it. 

      • Andrew_Smith
      • 6 hrs ago
      • Reported - view

       Hi Peter -- thanks for posting. I admire you for uploading a "truth-in-advertising" one take.

      Playing the second page with the left hand not learned/configured properly with the RH is probably counter-productive. 

      Overall I would slow down, maybe way down, and, from the beginning of the piece, get 2, then 4, then 6, etc measures nearly "perfect" (i.e., in quotes because there is always subjective interpretation of nuances) before progressing further. The goal is to program the correct coordination in the mind and body and thus reduce the number of passes where one is not doing it correctly. 

      And now that I think more about it, I don't practice what I preach nearly enough!

      • Peter_William
      • 57 min ago
      • Reported - view

       Hey Andrew. Thanks for the candid feedback. I am doing just 1 takes to simulate playing for an audience of 1 in the near future without the score!.  :-) .  After I heard it on the speakers it was clear that there was a major mishap in the first page and amply clear that the second page needs serious controlled memorization!.. The problem is I play for 45 mins and feel I got this fully and then it still doesn't stick fully and I have to glance at the score. I use a landmark system where I can just look at the bass note and the RH is all ok. 

      So my next order of business is to fully play the LH completely from memory. There are 4 places where there is a lot of stickness which I need to clear up.

      But hopefully in the next few weeks it should flow like a river ! at least that's the hope.  Then comes the dynamics and articulation refinements which I have in mind to get to some semblance of musicality. At the moment that looks very far away! :-)

    • Dominic_Cheli
    • Yesterday
    • Reported - view

    Hello everyone!

    Figured I’d share a little early information in this thread! My tonebase Guided Track on Bach’s Invention No. 1 will be released in two weeks. Excited to share it with everyone!

      • Peter_William
      • 23 hrs ago
      • Reported - view

       ah yes!.. I have been practicing this very piece from Prof. Magdalena Stern's lesson for the past 6-8 weeks. Looking forward to the tracks to make life a bit easier lol!. Did all my homework with slow practice etc.. so the tracks should help a lot.. Thank you!

      • Akzent oder Diminuendo?
      • Maria_F
      • 22 hrs ago
      • Reported - view

       You should do tracks about some of the Sinfonias! 

      • Peter_William
      • 13 hrs ago
      • Reported - view

       Then the concertos as well . I listen a lot to Beatrice Rana’s fantastic YT on the concertos 😀

      • Andrew_Smith
      • 6 hrs ago
      • Reported - view

       Thank you Dominic, that's great to hear!

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