Week 2: Horizontal and Vertical Voicing

Dominic_Cheli
updated 7 days ago
45replies

Welcome to Week 2!

This week, you’ll choose a new piece and focus on horizontal voicing, line, and texture. Use the daily practice activities to work systematically through the chords in your chosen piece.

Listen along with a strong reference recording. Track your progress daily, and feel free to upload short videos of your work. Questions about voicing, technique, or texture are always welcome.

Jarred is here to help you!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8KGTUHuOHo

Week 2 Repertoire

Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I

Fugue in E-flat minor
Fugue in B-flat minor

Well-Tempered Clavier, Book II

Fugue in F minor
Fugue in A-flat Major

English Suites

English Suite No. 2 — Prelude
English Suite No. 3 — Allemande

Partitas

Partita No. 1 — Prelude, Allemande
Partita No. 2 — Sinfonia (especially mm. 1–29)
Partita No. 4 — Overture (from m. 18), Allemande
Partita No. 5 — Praeambulum

Italian Concerto

Second or Third Movement

Practice Habits

Five basic horizontal voicing habits

(to be mastered first, without ornaments)

Long tones
Identify 1-beat chords or longer and create a line using the numbers game
(connect high-percentage notes; see video example).
Play all notes solo.
Harmonic outline
Add remaining chord tones and play the harmonic framework.
Sing the bass line in summary.
Ignore decorative notes. Listen.
Line awareness
Study melodic patterns and voices.
Identify structural vs. decorative notes. Listen.
Chords first, lines second
Build thick texture first, then set the lighter part atop, beneath, or within it.
Build walls before painting and decorating them. Listen.
Oblique motion
Horizontal timing challenges arise when one voice sustains.
Ensure all voices remain related.
Listen to the longer tone before moving a nearby voice.

Five horizontal voicing habits

(after the above are mastered, ornaments included)

Sing bass or tenor while playing soprano and alto.
Play in character (e.g., French Overture rhythm, pulse, notes inégales).
Notice when an unexpected voice or note of an arpeggiated chord initiates the next line.
Listen to all notes for harmonic color, leading voices, and overlaps to plan timing.
Study imitations across registers.
Identify imitated figures (inversions, transpositions).
Label them (x, y, etc.) to track changes.
Create a focal point where notes accumulate (Baroque crescendo).
Don’t force it.

- Kerstin
- 4 days ago
- Reported - view
Hi Jarred! Question: should I follow the chromatic middle voice until the break?
- jarred
  
  4 days ago
  
  Reported - view
  yes I would do that.
- Kerstin
  
  4 days ago
  
  Reported - view
  Thank you😊
- HaydnHigh
- 4 days ago
- Reported - view
Hi -

Here's a recording of me playing the first movement of Bach French Suite no. 6, since it's a Bach piece I'm learning already.

Thank you!

-Saoirse

Recording (3)
- Andrew.13
  
  Yesterday
  
  Reported - view
  nice!! I learned this one a little before
- Gloria
- 2 days ago
- Reported - view
79159660460__8C2BE24F-CB5C-445A-B153-DD74DB8B76C4
- Andrew.13
  
  Yesterday
  
  Reported - view
  beautiful!!!
- Gloria
  
  Yesterday
  
  Reported - view
  thank you Andrew.😊
- jarred
  
  12 hrs ago
  
  Reported - view
  great to hear the whole Sarabande, I have a question and a comment:
  
  1) at 0:50, you trill from E to D-sharp: is that on your edition? I usually play F to D-sharp.
  
  2) The form of your performing should be A and then A with ornaments, followed by B and then B with ornaments (you played A and B sections without ornaments, then repeat A and B with ornaments). But I’m curious - was that intentional?
  
  Your vertical voicing improved in the chordal passages. Work on a natural flow in solo eighth notes - these sounded stagnant and need a little motion to keep the dance character audible.
  
  Finally, you ask a tempting question about ornaments that I cannot possibly address in one comment to do it justice, but I will try to relate a few thoughts here. In the repeats of the English Suites, you can play a wide array of ornaments: Bach notes his ornamentation to show us his process of heightening nuance and rhetoric. We can ornament to highlight interval interstices, enliven unisons, to make long notes sound less recumbent, keeping in mind that ornaments should be delightfully decorative and natural, not interruptive or halting. Your ornaments are going in the right direction and you can use more of them. As for ornament details and their harmonic convergences, we’ll have to save that topic for another time: it’s a Pandora.
- Gloria
  
  8 hrs ago
  
  Reported - view
  thank you for the great feedback!!
  I will practice with your comments.
  I think I misunderstood from your last comment how to play this in order.😅
- jarred
  
  6 hrs ago
  
  Reported - view
  could easily happen when spelling out form in words… but now you have your answer! Good work in this TWI!
- Gloria
  
  5 hrs ago
  
  Reported - view
  Thank you for this awesome session. I am looking forward to participating next course. ( maybe the Ornaments in style in different periods?😁). Thanks again Jarred!!!
- Gloria
- 2 days ago
- Reported - view
Also I have questions about the length of ornamentation in Baroque era. I watched several YouTube videos but it was played soft so I can’t able to clearly hear that. Can you confirm if I played it correctly and explain it so I can understand better. Also I was trying to play the imitations bring them out but I was not certain how much louder would be enough? Lastly, this session is fantastic and I would like to watch it again after the class. Where can I find the videos? Thank you very much.😊
- Philosophy teacher and piano lover
- Juan_Carlos
- Yesterday
- Reported - view
An attempt at playing the recommended excerpt from the Second Partita. I've tried to focus on several focal points.
- Andrea_Buckland
  
  Yesterday
  
  Reported - view
  great playing, Juan Carlos!
- Philosophy teacher and piano lover
  
  Juan_Carlos
  
  18 hrs ago
  
  Reported - view
  Thank you very much, Andrea 😊!
- jarred
  
  12 hrs ago
  
  Reported - view
  well done, you are sensitive to the harmonic changes in the vocal line. A few thoughts: (1) new tone colour on each tied syncopation, (2) softer tiratas and fioturae (32nd notes) to give a natural flow to the structural notes (1:06-1:11), and (3) horizontally voice the moving line if there are repeating notes between the moving notes (0:06 - 0:08). At 1:11, play a B-flat instead of a C (the octave misprint here sounds hollow but most editions have it). I hope you continue playing this - it's a great piece for horizontal voicing. Thanks for participating in this TWI, always great to hear you!
- Philosophy teacher and piano lover
  
  Juan_Carlos
  
  8 hrs ago
  
  Reported - view
  Thank you so much for your feedback, Jarred! I love playing Bach every day, and I'm going to apply your instructions from this great intensive. I must say that they are very detailed and clarifying, and can truly transform the careless way we sometimes practice this wonderful music.
- jarred
  
  6 hrs ago
  
  Reported - view
  I hope my comments help, and I am glad you play Bach every day! It’s the best.
- Roy_JamesPike
- Yesterday
- Reported - view
We are moving house, which has meant spending most of my time packing boxes and wrapping dozens of delicate items, leaving hardly any time to approach the piano in a settled manner.

This has been a really inspiring TWI. Making differences in focus within the horizontal voicing makes more sense to me than the vertical, albeit I shall be pursuing each of these approaches when we are in a different place both in location and demeanour.

Thanks Jarred for your diligent teaching. Much appreciated.

I think it was Schnabel who played a Bach prelude at the start of every practice session. This approach to voicing has provided a different light and approach to appreciating the importance of pursuing more Bach pieces beyond the very few that I have already.

I came across the Goldberg Aria today when starting to pack up my music. That's a good place to start!
- jarred
  
  12 hrs ago
  
  Reported - view
  So glad you could observe this TWI. I must admit, I chuckled when reading your last sentence, "I came across the Goldberg Aria...That's a good place to start" - that could be a New Yorker cartoon of the week caption 😂. But I know what you mean, this is a piece that demands exceptionally sensitive voicing and precise placement/weighting to make it sing. Go for it!