Show Notes
Update: Just got five promo codes to download Time Guru (the cool metronome app mentioned in the episode.) Send me a message or let me know down below you’re interested and I’ll share the codes! Happy Practicing Let’s get our good new habits in early in the year! In this episode, I read practical advice from three organists/organ method books. The organ method books are in a class of their own— highly entertaining reading. We begin with Francis Routh’s Teach Yourself The Organ (1958.) His asterisk marking the complete works of Buxtehude as ‘fairly easy’ is representative of this amusing book: Harold Gleason’s method book of 1962 makes up the bulk of this episode, the complete advice is pasted below. We feature some of Fayth Freese’s excellent article from The Diapason. I recommend the full read. And here is the advice to teens I made for the Harrison School for the Arts in Lakeland Florida. I cannot emphasize enough how music should be a joyous process at this age, never an abusive one. From Gleason (bold type is my emphasis) HOW TO PRACTICE: * Make a schedule for daily practice. Devote a definite amount of time to technique, to new music, to perfecting music already studied, and to memorizing. Devote at least one hour a day to piano practice. Later the student will need to reserve time for perfecting the many skills required for playing the church service. * Practice as if the piece were being memorized (see the section on Memorizing). * Study the music before beginning to practice. Note the key signature, time signature, note values, fingering, pedaling, structure, special problems, and general style. If the fingering and pedaling is not given or is inadequate, it should be carefully worked out according to the principles given in the sections on Fingering and Pedaling. * Memorize and always use the same fingering and pedaling. Incorporate the articulation, phrasing and interpretation into the practice. * Try to avoid playing wrong notes or incorrect time values from the first time an exercise or piece is practiced. If a wrong note or rhythm is played, do not immediately correct it. Go back to the beginning of the phrase and repeat the passage correctly a number of times. * Concentrate on the work at hand and avoid mechanical, unthinking practice and repetition. Always practice after a lesson. * Practice slowly in the following sequence: right hand; left hand; both hands; pedal; right hand and pedal; left hand and pedal; both hands and pedal. Begin the slow practice of short sections for both hands and pedal while working on separate parts. * When the phrases and sections of a composition have been mastered at a low tempo, play it all the way through. When this has been accomplished with complete muscular control and accuracy, the tempo may be gradually increased. Return to slow, detailed practice of sections which are not secure, and repeat this process at succeeding practice periods. * Always practice at a steady tempo. Do not play easy places fast and difficult places slowly. * Devote the most attention to difficult passages. * In contrapuntal music, play one or more parts and sing another part. * In passages of a technical nature, the practice of four-note groups in the various rhythmic patterns is helpful in developing speed and control. * Stop practicing and relax for a few minutes at the first sign of tension. * When practicing technical exercises for manuals and pedals, and when first learning a piece, use clear, quick-speaking stops of 8’ or 8’ and 4’ pitch (Gedackt 8’, Principal 4’). * As soon as the notes in a composition have been mastered, work out an appropriate registration. * The drawing of stops and the use of combination pistons and reversibles should be carefully practiced and synchronized, in order not to interfere with the performance of the music. * Above all, the student should learn to listen and hear that the parts are sounding together, are released together, and that the touch, rhythm, accents, an
More from WTF Bach
The music at the end is BWV 600, from a forthcoming ‘electrified’ arrangement of Bach’s Orgelbüchlein. The beautiful passage toward the end of my rant— with the koto accompaniment and bird song— comes from one of my absolute favorite books: R.H. Blythe’s writings about Haiku. Blyth considered the three greatest geniuses of time to be Basho, Bach, and Shakespeare— in that order! Wow! What am I missing with Basho!? More than a podcast. This is WTF Bach.
Volume 6 in ‘J.S. Bach: Complete Keyboard Works’ is on presale today! Here are the relevant links: * J.S. Bach: Complete Keyboard Works, Vol. 6 - Arrangements of Albinoni and Reincken(https://modernclassicalx.lnk.to/JSBachCompleteKeyboardWorksVol6FromArrangementsofAlbinoniandReincken) I might call this volume a ‘headphones album’ or perhaps one to listen to in the car: The sonic space shifts throughout the course of these pieces. I describe this process in depth in the episode, but essentially each track is two recordings of the piece, playing simultaneously: one recording is the original live performance, while another is that very same performance, played back through the Disklavier with the dynamics flatlined— as if the piano keyboard were incapable of dynamics — like a harpsichord. The two recordings were then ‘live panned’ during the mixing according to my feeling for the music. The result, while perhaps less extreme than this all sounds, is certainly a noticeable phenomenon, especially in headphones or seated between two speakers as in a car. But enough about that, let’s get to the music. Fugue it:
We’ve now covered the seven surviving earliest vocal works by Johann Sebastian Bach! This episode is a brief tour through the episodes we dedicated to these pieces, refreshing our memories and attempting to identify unifying stylistic features. All the episodes covering the Arnstadt/Mülhausen cantatas can be found at:https://wtfbach.substack.com/t/early-cantatas Wanna Cantata?
“The consummate expressiveness of {BWV 4] has always been marvelled at. Each verse is as if chiselled in music.” -Albert Schweitzer, Vol. 2 Bach’s early Easter cantata remains one of the most beloved in the entire canon. Barely 22 years old, he is already in full command of his tone-painting. Here are three measures particularly packed with symbolism: Filling the music with rests at the word nothing, ‘one death eating another’ through the closest possible canon, crosses both in shape and every note ‘sharped’ (gekreuzt,) dripping blood on the Passover doors with short 8th notes, leaping a diminished 12th (!) in the bass aria at the word death, this cantata is a dictionary of text painting. …und singen Halleluja!
Sometimes an article from the EB strikes me as so amusing, I simply have to share it with you. See you next week (or the week after, latest) for the conclusion of our early cantata survey, with Christ lag in Todes Banden, BWV 4. Thanks for listening! Well, That’s Fascinating!