Harriet's practice diary
I am not very organized about my practicing, though I am consistent; I rarely miss a day. This past year was difficult and I've had some discouraging experiences that made me almost want to quit, but I kept at it anyway.* This is what I am working on now:
- Well-Tempered Clavier project: I decided last spring to work through the entire WTC and spend enough time on each piece in it to get familiar with it. I'd learned some of them over the years, but this time I want to keep at it and not skip the harder ones.
There's no schedule or deadline for this; it's just something I've always wanted to try. So at the moment, I am on Nos. 9 and 10 in Part I (E major and E minor). I have ended up spending more time on these (I started No. 9 about 2 months ago and have memorized it). I probably spend an hour or two a day on this. - The other big piece I'm learning is Chopin Ballade No. 3. I spent about a year on Ballade No. 1, memorized it and played it in some classes, but never felt like it was performance ready and put it aside for a while. My teacher kept mentioning that I should try to bring it back, so I did, last summer - and all the hard stuff is still hard! But every few days, I work through it. I decided to learn No. 3 as a comparison and to see if I could do a better job building a performance of it; I don't know how well it's going so far.
- There are a couple other pieces I've been practicing a few times a week or less: The Alcotts from Ives' Concord Sonata and Rachmaninoff Etude Tableau Op. 33 in G minor.
- Then, I made a pile of pieces I've learned over the past 10 years (since I started studying with my current teacher) and have been reading through them to see if I'd like to bring any of them back under my fingers.
- Scales and exercises: I have a scale routine and a few simple exercises that my teacher uses, so I run through that - not every day recently, though for a long time, it was a daily thing.
*I've played the piano on and off for the past - yikes - 60 years. When I was 12 I learned how to play the cello and ended up majoring in it in college and getting a DMA. Then went on to do other things. Over the past 15 years I got more seriously into the piano. I still play the cello as well.
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Wow! Best of luck to you with this project! Can't wait to hear about your progress and hopefully see you play sometime. Ciao!
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Hi Harriet, I have tried to learn the WCT, but it is too difficult for me. I switch to invention, hoping that will give basic foundation on Bach’s composition! Thank you for sharing, and good luck on your project!
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Hannahong thank you! A few years ago, I made a project of learning all of the two-part inventions and some of the three-part sinfonias, and they do help. (The three-parts are just as hard as any fugues in WTC.)
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Lesson today: My biggest problem right now is that I've lost confidence in my playing, especially in front of anyone. I'm a pretty experienced performer - on the cello, I've played lots of solo recitals, all six Bach suites from memory, a few concertos with orchestra, chamber music, and gigs for pay; on the piano, I've played from memory in front of audiences, in lessons, in classes. But a combination of yuck experiences recently has chipped away at my sense of "I can do this," and I doubt everything before I even sit down on the bench. Even in front of my teacher, who is the kindest and most simpatico person I know.
So today I played the two Bach prelude and fugue sets (E major and E minor). I played through the E major prelude, which is possibly the simplest one in the book and which I easily memorized after a week, glued to the page. What was I afraid of? I don't know! My teacher said, "I want you to play it again without fear." Second time was certainly less fearful, but why should it be fearful at all? Then the fugue, and I have no idea how it sounded. He asked me to play it again from memory, but I couldn't do it without breaking down.
Then we worked on the E minor; discussed tempo in the first section and how to keep the melody floating over the busy accompaniment; also how to make the ornaments more graceful and less of an interruption of the melody. For the Presto section, the issue is keeping the hands moving together (a la Hanon), and my teacher suggested I practice everything staccato. The same issue arises in the Fugue, with the same suggestion. I tried some of that during the lesson, and then played normally, and it was better.
No time today for Chopin.
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Harriet Kaplan I have the same problem. I can’t even perform in front of my teacher ! 🥲I feel so discouraged.
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Harriet Kaplan Hannahong I am exactly the same. It is super frustrating when I go to my teacher and can't do half of what i do by myself. I feel the urge to express through music, but when there is audience, I malfunction
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Harriet, you are working on some wonderful pieces! I also used to play cello, but I never studied music at university so I didn’t have time to practice. My sweet husband bought me a student-quality cello at the beginning of the pandemic, but we’ve had some huge challenges over the past 20 months and I still haven’t had time to get back to it.
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Thank you, Brother Will. I really your fantastic playing!
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I totally understand how you feel! I hope we all break the barrier soon!
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Hi Harriet, I'm also working on the WTC and understand sometimes feeling frustrated and discouraged. But I heard an interview by Andras Schiff and he said he still considers his playing of these pieces as work in process (adding a link below to the interview). So that helped me understand that these aren't pieces that we can ever feel we have completely learned and stop playing, but can continue to play and work on over time. And that's a huge accomplishment that you have learned to play so many. I'm still at numbers 4 & 5. I'm about to post a progress video on fugue #4 which I've found to be quite difficult and mentally draining to play.
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Anthony Miyake I'm using the Henle edition with Schiff's fingerings, and in his introduction he says the WTC is the pianist's daily bread. This past spring I watched a performance of all of Book 1 played on the harpsichord by Mahan Esfahani at Wigmore Hall (unfortunately, I don't think the video is up anymore), and during it he made a little speech in which he said playing these pieces isn't just a good thing to do, it's the BEST thing to do.
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Harriet Kaplan , thank you for the information. I think I'll pick up that edition as I'm curious to see the fingering that Schiff uses. The 4th Prelude, for example has a lot of held-down notes with the other fingers playing legato. And how Schiff manages to play those descending scales legato without using the thumb to turn or without having a 6th finger to not run out of fingers (or using pedal) would be interesting to see. But I do think that fingering needs to be adjusted for each player as sometimes difference in finger strength require some individual adjustment. And I agree with Mahan Esfahani's assessment--for me, it's not only been extremely enjoyable to practice playing them but also good for working on technique.
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I see I fell off the wagon of posting practice to this thread. I don't exactly have a day job, but I'm the administrator for an international string competition which is coming up in five weeks (!), and it's taking up a lot of my time and attention.
What I've been working on:
- Relearning Schubert Impromptu Op. 90 No. 4 (for the Schubert challenge). I REALLY wanted to refresh my memory of it (as in being able to play it from memory), and it's almost there. I find the most difficult thing about this is voicing, especially in the middle section with all those thick repeated chords.
- I started learning a Beethoven sonata - Op. 26. I asked my teacher if there was anything else he'd like to be teaching me, and this is what he suggested. I'm signed up to play the first movement for the master class this coming Thursday. (The famous movement of this piece is, of course, the funeral march third movement, but I haven't gotten to that yet.) I'm struggling with Beethoven's articulation markings - those staccatissimos - do they really mean super-short? Again, wishing I could play this from memory, but it usually takes me longer than a few weeks to get to that point (more like a few months ... or years).
- Still learning preludes and fugues from the WTC. I'm now on F minor; the fugue is quite knotty. I also keep plugging away at E major, particularly the fugue, which is for some reason challenging me more than I would have thought.
- Still touching on Chopin Ballade No. 3 - not every day, unfortunately (see string competition mention above).
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Hello Harriet,
I just posted today about my working on the exact same project -- to get through the entire WTC. Hilda indicated you were also working on that. I've recently worked on the E Major and E Minor and working right now on the many thorny sections of the F Minor Fugue. it is a real finger bender... will be happy to share thoughts and notes on these as I go along. I should set up my own practice diary too, but haven't done so yet. will get there. good luck with your ongoing work.
