Bach Inventions: A New Approach

Imagine your father is J.S. Bach, not the one whose chorale settings you had to study in harmony class -- without text all their wit is lost! -- but the one who loved to improvise, indeed, to intersperse improvisation with rigor so seamlessly that it takes years of bumbling through to figure out the difference...

OK  Back to the top: Imagine your father is that latter J.S. Bach and that he has written for you, his extremely talented 13-year-old son, some fool-around pieces.  Wouldn't you, knowing him as only you do, have a blast trying to amuse him with your take(s) on each distinctively witty undertaking?

Duo Listening / Duel Listening

It's fun to make up titles.  This one prompted the observation that, all too often, a duo is a duel whether of like or unlike instruments.

I have just been describing how a pair of young students learned to sight-read truly musically by reading together, first taking turns listening to one another, then as a duo actually sight-reading together.

They know something I never learned, namely that listening is the basis of it all from the very outset through to the deepest adult enjoyment.  Actually, that last sentence is not quite right:  They know something which I was never taught but had to learn the hard way...

I've Heard it Before!

My job as a performer is to make it impossible for you, the listener, to say that.  In fact, you can only have heard it before if it is a recording and, even then, if it is a really good recording there will always be some fresh element that commands your attention.

But we are trained to not need to listen--by we I mean musicians.  Once we can identify the snippet, as in
"Name that Tune!", we are done.  No need to listen with a question mark:  Is that all there is to this?  What more could be happening that is not apparent at this moment?  Or, on a deeper level, is this really a minuet or is the composer playing games with me?

In our era of reproduced everything the full zest and savor of every sound risks getting lost.  Come on: let's put it back.  Let's insist on getting it back.

Why Are We In Such a Hurry?

No wonder there is so little interest among young people in music of the past -- though I'm told the same is true for literature.   We are the victims of having it crammed down our throats too much too soon and no digestion allowed.

Now that I am a teacher I enjoy correcting some of the terrible effects of that cramming.  It is a luxury to savor music through the attentive ear of the student rather than have the student assume that their ear is incapable of real observation.

My, what we miss in the name of achievement!

Repetition Again Proved Impossible!

Another session on the Clementi C major Sonatina, Andante movement:  This time the student is hearing the very subtle correspondences between black and white keys in such a way as to be thrown for a loop.

Bravo, say I.  This is exactly what should be happening!  Hearing will always be fresh provided that one's sense of hearing has been opened to take into account every aspect of the sound, not just the superficial aspects of "how it goes."  It doesn't ever go the same way twice.

The more deeply he gets into his own experience of this piece the greater my respect for the composition on all levels.

Up and Down Again

Rereading a recent post it strikes me that many musicians might think they are above having to think about directionality.  I learned how vivid it is when, in a master class with a true master teacher as well as artist, the young professional pianist could not answer the question in relation to a Schubert melody.

The fingers go sideways, it is true.  But the heart?

Irony in Rhythm

Some of the best music for teaching reading are in Schumann's Album for the Young.  Schumann was fascinated by fairy tales and what are they if not situations in which more is going on than meets the eye.

Take Chorale:  All half note chords.  Ah!  But with a melody which, when played legato, produces a kind of beat which becomes more intense as it lengthens.  Ironically the sound decays as the intensity of ear and fingers increases.  

Contrast that with Soldier's March: All (or at least, mostly) eighth note chords with rests in between--the exact opposite of the Chorale.  But here the demand is to finger the chords as if they will be played legato so that one can release and attack precisely on time.  This gets particularly hard (and fun) when, at the end, the movement between final quarter note and the penultimate chord must be achieved with no break at all!

You might say that the subject of reading rhythm in these two pieces is the essence of musical rhythm, which is timing much more than the superficial beat.