Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Bach Invention No. 1 Problems

And I make a very distinct separation between passages that need to be attacked HS or HT which I've integrated into my practice method. It all goes back to the topic of efficient effective practice. Passages that have relatively easy notation and intervals, in addition to having voices pass between hands (long runs, big chords), all lend themselves to HT practice with polishing of trouble spots HS IMO. (It's worth repeating the value I've found in working with the theme in isolation - just playing around with it really - just like Bach did I imagine.) While passages that present 2 distant left/right technique - even if quite high level - lend themselves to familiarization HS before bringing hands together (Waltzes would be an example). I find this approach is especially helpful when the key signature is odd or the notation dense (think Alkan, Rzewski. Any piece needs to be analysed on its own merits and it's quite possible that different passages within the same piece will need to be started either HS or HT (and I think there pretty easy to spot after much exposure, months not years). Previously I simply hadn't found good results approaching the polyphony and contrapuntal elements between left/right hands in Bach hands separate (as the problem lies in the fine coordination of each hand together). And so while I probably play Bach slower now as a result, the voices definitely sing and speed will come with time (or at least that is the plan).

I guess my goal of answering the OP's question is to reduce frustration as much as possible. The piano is such a wonderful instrument but it does not come easy to me. I approach the piano very grounded. I drain a lot of the mysticism out of the topic. These pieces have been attacked HT for generations of students and practitioners and YT is full of people who approach these pieces hands together. To me, that’s good news as a mere mortal, it suggests to me that it's completely normal for a human to be able to work on these Bach pieces hands together. I think this perspective, though abstract and incompletely detailed here, does reduce frustration and increases enjoyment of learning piano hence my motivation for suggesting it to the OP. I'm also open-minded enough - and fundamentally work from the point of view - that the topic of leaning and piano is large enough that I have no doubts someone may have had good results in attacking every piece hands separate from the start. I mean, really I have no idea what the ideal practice method is, really what do I know? but it would seem to me the forum profits as a whole by adding other suggestions to the topic.

Richard, this isn't really a fair comparison, is it? There is so much more expressive potential with the piano as compared with a harpsichord.

But it's interesting that you bring this up, because I recently started working on my first 3-part invention. And yesterday it occurred to me that these pieces were written for harpischord, not piano. So in pre-piano times, how did people successfully bring out those three voices when they couldn't control the dynamics or articulation?

Articulation is what you can control on a harpsichord, and that's one of the ways you can bring the voices out. It's a very subtle art.

It is not a fair comparison, MaryBee, but I never had fairness in mind when I posted it.

You are quite right about the potential. And it would be a waste, would it not, to cast it away by playing the piano without taking advantage of that very expressivity?

I didn't think that was a harpsichord, btw, it sounds to me more like an automated playback - which was the point.

Furthermore, I do not believe these pieces were written for harpsichord but for clavichord. Though they are intimate and subtle these instruments are much more expressive than their plucked brethren and were typically used for composition, the other main purpose of the inventions.

I understand also that there is some dynamic response in a harpsichord though very little and most of the expression is via the articulation.

Which invention have you gone for and what method(s) are you using? I'm sure you'll have fun with it. They're very engrossing to study and deeply rewarding to play. You displayed a very controlled touch in your Gnossiene's in the last recital so I'm sure you'll do very well with the sinfonia.

???

Ok, my kid learned his first couple Bach inventions last year. He definitely learned the 1st one hands separate and that one was slow going. Once he got a feel for the phrasing and the shaping and how the hands fit together (which was somewhat slow and arduous process), the 2nd invention he learned came much easier (although I think he did go at that one hands separately for a bit too). Even when he was getting fluent, he'd practice them hands separately for phrasing and articulation and them practice hands together. He has a super picky teacher.

So mark me for another hands separate person.

Well, that just tells you how little I know about the harpsichord! I didn't realize that there was any dynamic range, and I also didn't know about the articulation. Thanks for giving me a clue, everyone!

That's also interesting about the Inventions being written for the clavichord. I didn't know that. I've never heard either a harpsichord or a clavichord in person. Although the clavichord I heard on a web site sounded pretty and gentle, almost like classical guitar, and more appealing to me than harpsichord.

Thanks for the encouragement, Richard.
My teacher asked me to think about a Bach piece to work on, and I found four of the Sinfonia that I really like: 2, 11, 14, and 15. We decided it would be best to start with #14, in B-flat major. We spent part of my last lesson looking at it and planning out how to get started, but now I'm on my own (no teacher) for 7 weeks this summer. So this thread is coming at a good time, as I try to figure it out myself.

I started by just listening to the piece, trying to hear the different voices. I listened to piano performances as well as a violin/viola/cello arrangement by Janine Jansen. (I think her arrangements of the inventions are are gorgeous, and they make it very easy to follow each individual part. Here is her CD.) Then I played each voice separately, just to get to know it a bit. My teacher suggested I start by playing HS, concentrating on the fingering, which is how we worked the couple 2-part inventions that I did. So that's where I'm at now. Although sometimes I can't restrain myself, and every day or two, I have to put hands together (although it is painfully slow at this point), just so I can imagine how it's going to sound when it's done.

If contemporary songs are like beer, classical and Romantic music like fine wines, then Bach's music is like a liqueur. It is very concentrated. One bar can even be divided into four sections while you're studying it. Don't think of it as painfully slow but as a religious adagio.

Let bars 8 and 9 dictate the tempo rather than 1 and 2. Play them like Barber's Adagio for strings.



Even this is fast for a first run through of Bach's music. His fingering and his polyphony is so unfamiliar for us today.

Keep to a slow and gentle pace until the notes come to you without hesitation or stumbling throughout the entire piece as Bach's nectar filters into your fingers and then you'll know it's time to take it up a notch.

At this point, and this is difficult to comprehend until you've been through the process enough times, even at a lugubrious pace, you are over ninety percent done.

You have led your reluctant fingers onto the dance floor, some of them have even begun to tap their feet, but now, when all the hesitations have gone, the work is finished, all the fingers have begun to get the rhythm and all you have left to do is let them start to dance.

Richard, with that description, you've made me want to play it slowly!

I totally hear you but hold fast hands together! You're building the foundation of excellent musicianship! At times like these I echo ZRTs comments below. In fact, I've been known - when encountering frustration even with slow practice HT - to slow down even more. I don't know what it is. Maybe I have no shame? No dignity? No roomates? But one thing is elemental, I always improve.

I have been working on Sinfonia #12 off and on. This is the piece i worked half way with a teacher who took me over from my old teacher / friend when she moved away to CA. I liked the teacher but the commute to her house was tough then I started working, had to study for the CPA exam, then started graduate school etc. so I quit. I did not play the piano until 3 years ago. I have pencil line marks to separate right hand and left hand - trying to show which one belong to which hand. I can sight read 2 part inventions (slowly) but I always had a problem with 3 parts - difficult to figure out how to play it in my fingers. It does not come in so naturally as in 2 parts. In two parts, you hear the melody in right hand and sure enough it repeats in left hand with a bit of variations. I enjoy those imitations woven through the piece in contrary motions, conversational back & forth and sometime in parallel. There is always occasional dissonance buried within like a jewel. In 3 parts, I guess we have to do a little more digging until we get the feel. Do you feel the same way? It is incredibly beautiful.

Anyway, this is something I am doing on my own. I have to wait until my current pieces are done to start a new, may be in a couple of weeks I can start a new Bach piece with my teacher. I cannot wait.

Ha! We did the same thing with the pencil marks to show which hand plays the middle voice when it isn't obvious. I also highlighted some of those areas to help remind me when I need to switch. It seems adding the third voice doesn't just make it twice as difficult, but also twice as interesting! Good luck with going back to working on Bach.

Wow I was not expecting this many replies haha. Maybe I'm exaggerating how much I'm struggling with this piece simply out of the negativity I was feeling of my inability to learn stuff in an hour like I would be able to on guitar.

I think the real problem is not that the piece itself is too difficult for me, considering I can play Bouree in E minor near flawlessly and correct me if I'm wrong but this piece seems to me maybe a step or two above in terms of difficulty because of the more independent rhythms. I think the real problem is that I'm simply expecting too much of my self by expecting myself to be able to just sit down for an hour and be able to play the whole thing hands together. I know what I have to do now and its the same thing I've done with the Bouree and every other piece I've learned and that's simply to learn the hands separately and work on coordination. Thanks for all the suggestions!

Don't feel bad. I consider this piece "tricky hard". I've been at this - on and off - for several months, and can't quite get the articulation right (ie - when to play left hand legato and stacatto, etc)... Also, I struggled a lot with the trills. I've heard people playing this piece with no trills and to me, that's Sacrilege..lol.

Again, it looks like an easy 2-pager, but it isn't.

Here is a great tutorial on this. Hope it helps. I plan to refer to this when it comes to polishing time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzEX...y6e_8RfNrKHCCc2B1ppUFU&feature=inbox

Invention No.8 - One of the greatest little pieces in human history!

Too hard for me just now though