|
Welcome to the Piano World Piano Forums Over 3 million posts about pianos, digital pianos, and all types of keyboard instruments. Over 100,000 members from around the world.
Join the World's Largest Community of Piano Lovers
(it's free)
It's Fun to Play the Piano ... Please Pass It On!
|
|
63 members (Berto, benkeys, Adam Reynolds, Brendan, AlkansBookcase, accordeur, apianostudent, anotherscott, 36251, 13 invisible),
2,067
guests, and
285
robots. |
Key:
Admin,
Global Mod,
Mod
|
|
|
Joined: Oct 2018
Posts: 77
Full Member
|
OP
Full Member
Joined: Oct 2018
Posts: 77 |
It would be nice to know how they approached something new. Did they do hours and hours of scales and broken chords? And I wonder if they spent weeks working on a single piece. I can't see it somehow. Maybe they did.
Do you think they did hands separately, then hands together, slow practice? That seems like a fairly modern idea, for some reason. I get the impression they were taught to sight-read relatively fluently and the notion of being sat painstakingly going over the same few bars to get them right would've seemed bizarre.
Would they really have spent four or five weeks learning a fugue? What do people think?
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jul 2018
Posts: 309
Full Member
|
Full Member
Joined: Jul 2018
Posts: 309 |
CPE Bach wrote "Essay on the True Art of Playing Keyboard Instruments" I've never read it but your post reminds me it's time to check it out from my local library.
Just do it. -- Nike
|
|
|
|
Joined: Oct 2018
Posts: 77
Full Member
|
OP
Full Member
Joined: Oct 2018
Posts: 77 |
It would be interesting to know.
On the one hand we might think of JS as being something of a hard-task master, the children kept at the keyboard literally for hours on end, their eyes peering into the gathering gloom.
But then I can't see them slogging away at a single fugue for a month either.
I suspect keyboard pedagogy was entirely different to what we're used to. It only occurs to me as I'm learning another WTC fugue, and as I slowly played the same bar, slowly, hands together, getting the correct fingering for the umpteenth time [I'm really not complaining as I genuinely enjoy the fugue learning process], for some reason I wondered how it would've been taught by Bach himself.
Would he really have expected them to go through it painstakingly, slow practice. Or would he have got their sight-reading up to such a standard *first* that they could've handled it competently from the start.
Anyway, it doesn't really matter. It was just a random thought.
Last edited by wolfpaw; 04/01/21 09:42 PM.
|
|
|
|
Joined: Oct 2020
Posts: 523
500 Post Club Member
|
500 Post Club Member
Joined: Oct 2020
Posts: 523 |
I hope he had more pianos than Frank B, or there would be a wait to practice.
"sired 20 children. 10 survived into adulthood — six sons and four daughters
Casio PX-S3000 Nope, no issues with it at all. Took lessons from 1960 to 1969, stopped at age 16. Started again in July 2020 at age 67. Lots more fun now!
|
|
|
|
Joined: Sep 2017
Posts: 3,948
3000 Post Club Member
|
3000 Post Club Member
Joined: Sep 2017
Posts: 3,948 |
Back in those days it was common for people to copy music even when printed copies can be bought. We have surviving notebooks including “Notebook for Anna M”. Today we download music or pass PDFs around we face to face meeting is not practical.
People would get pieces off each other. Part of practice would be to copy a piece before passing it to the next student. Don’t know what Bach would think about Hanon if he was around.
|
|
|
|
Joined: Dec 2007
Posts: 6,375
6000 Post Club Member
|
6000 Post Club Member
Joined: Dec 2007
Posts: 6,375 |
I think Bach was a very busy man after he moved to Leipzig. Responsible for the music at several churches, teaching the boy choir, writing new music for the services, and rehearsing the instruments and singers. I wonder if he even had time to teach beginners. I wouldn't be surprised if he delegated to the older children or students. Practice would have to have been on harpsichord or clavichord. Those instruments are not robust and care-free like a modern piano. I bet lessons or practice time were not wasted on students that did not show promise.
Sam
|
|
|
|
Joined: Sep 2017
Posts: 3,948
3000 Post Club Member
|
3000 Post Club Member
Joined: Sep 2017
Posts: 3,948 |
Bach's kids probably helped him copy music parts (instrument & vocal) for his Cantatas to be performed for the upcoming Sunday church performance. Besides practicing an instrument, copying music is a way to learn about notation.
|
|
|
Forums43
Topics223,392
Posts3,349,320
Members111,634
|
Most Online15,252 Mar 21st, 2010
|
|
|
|
|
|