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I am teaching the Prelude in C, WTC out of Piano Adventures BK.4 to a student. The student is in excellent shape pianistically, but is having a hard grasping this piece. It almost seems too long to hold her interest and it goes on and on in the same pattern. What approaches should I take with this piece? I have suggested having her block the chords, but not actually go in and name each one. Also, dotted rhythms to help with eveness.
Also, is this a good contest piece?
I can't ever remember actually learning this myself, although it isn't hard so any teaching tips would be great.

Hi Mindy,

It is, of course, a mature piece, and so may demand more than many students can give. What age is your student? I taught it to a 3rd grader once, but her playing was mechanical, as she was too young to grasp the intensity of the chord progressions. You can hear her performance at http://www.klavier.ms/audio/VivianneVo.mp3

Have her play just the top note of each arpeggio (maybe as you play the rest?), and this will help her hear a line that is somewhat a melody. It could be that since the piece doesn't have a clear melody, its just a bunch of arpeggios. Then trade places and let her do the notes "leading up to" the melody. The top note should be distinctly heard throughout the piece. Not sure if this will help, but its worth a shot!

I have a student who is working on this piece also. What I did last week was play the Gounod "Ave Maria" melody line on the flute as she played (or you could play the melody on a keyboard flute or violin setting). She is now able to imagine a melody line as she plays, and likes the piece so much that she wants to do it as a duet with me on the next recital. We're considering using the "harpsichord" setting of my keyboard--it sounds just like the real thing!

As a student commenting...

My teacher had me learn the chords, and play it as a series of chords. He also then asked me to "choreograph" the piece, by "drawing" what I thought it was doing. Instead, I shaded sections with colored markers, reflecting the changing "moods" of the arpeggios. The other thing he did was focus a lot on the shifts between G and C and explain what was happening as it moved.

I like playing the piece, and vary it a lot.

I played this in church once, and rewrote it all as chord instead of arpeggios. That let me get in onto 1 page instead of 8. Sounds like cheating, but I still played it the same.

I've heard it done very effectively in an uptempo with a walking bass guitar added.