How to play bach.

[madsfr1234]

Hi, there


I want to be a master at play bach.
But i dont know how to play ir in the right way.

i have all the recordings were Glenn Gould"The best pianist in the world" plays most of i compotisons.

Bot how to play Bach? :D

[Kassaa]

With your fingers.

[quantum]

Have a listen to Angela Hewitt or Murray Perahia.  They are two of my favourite Bach performers.  Listen to his keyboard works on harpsichord and organ.  It will give a different perspective.  After all Bach was known as an organist in his day, not as a composer.

Have you read the explication on ornaments?  It is a good start.  A translation appears in the Alfred edition of the Inventions.

I think Kassaa has the right idea.  It is hard to bring out the notes of a Bach fugue theme with your back.     

[counterpoint]

i have all the recordings were Glenn Gould"The best pianist in the world" plays most of i compotisons.

Bot how to play Bach? :D

Play it in your own way!

1 Glenn Gould is enough. We don't need hundreds of Glenn Goulds (or Richters, or Brendels or Horowits or whomelse...)

[pianogeek_cz]

"You are all INDIVIDUALS!"
"Yes, we are all INDIVIDUALS!"

...

Seriously, the way to play Bach starts with analysis. First one voice (horizontal). What is the motif? Where does the motif culminate? What musical parameters (e. g. melody, metrum, rhythm, articulation...) will you use to denote the arc of the motif? Where are the countermotifs? What musical parameter is the basis of contrast between the two? Which parameters will be static (e. g. stay the same with each repetition of the motif/countermotif(s)), which ones will you use to provide a "plot" to the voice (will you keep the articulation and strucuture of dynamics the same and vary the overall dynamic levels, or will you be toying with articulation, perhaps even try shifting the points of culmination within the motifs?)?
Then the voices together (vertical). Where is the important thing happening? Yadda yadda yadda. Lots of thinking, both at and away from the piano.
Then fingering. Can't stress this enough.

I hope this helps. Have fun.

[kyliec]

Hi, I have been .learning my first fugue (F minor from book 2 of the well tempered clavier). Two things that I have found useful:
1. playing each voice separately
2. playing 2 voices together (e.g soprano + bass or Soprano plus tenor or tenor and bass etc) until you can play these fluently.

I have broken the piece into sections of a few measures to practice practice in a "loop" with the aim of being able to play each section without error a number of times in a row (eg 5 or 7). This will help with mistake proofing your playing.
I second the last post about Angela Hewitt's recordings of Bach, they are fantastic.
Kylie

[lostinidlewonder]

Understanding when Polyphony is applicable or when Homophony is better in the application of Bach keyboard is key to playing his music at a masters level on the modern keyboard. This is a detailed research which requires a lot of practical application before it is understood.

[slobone]

Playing Bach is mostly about getting the fingering right.

[counterpoint]

Playing Bach is mostly about getting the fingering right.

You don't like Bach, do you? 

[slobone]

You don't like Bach, do you? 

On the contrary, I love his music passionately. To play, not necessarily to hear, since I rarely find performances that click with me.

Obviously I was joking -- but only partly. I do believe that working out the right fingering, and then practicing it until it becomes automatic, is the primary technical step in learning a Bach piece.

In Chopin (who I also love passionately, before you accuse me of God knows what), you can often get away with using whatever finger seems to work at the time. Try that with Bach and you're sure to get in trouble about 3 or 4 notes later.

Of course fingering is just the beginning in Bach, but once you master it he gets a whole lot easier. I'm not even going to go into interpretation, because that's the job of a lifetime.

[counterpoint]

Of course fingering is just the beginning in Bach

Okay, fine you made this clear 

(and if you didn't like Chopin, it would not occure to me to accuse you of God knows what  )

[guendola]

Start by reading the article about bach on the website of Jack Gibbons (www.jackgibbons.co.uk), read and listen to anything you can get your hands on. Experiment, discuss with other people. The best starting point for becoming a good bach player is to be one with too little knowledge and experience and work on these deficits. I don't think it is possible to become one just by wanting it.

[slobone]

Incidentally, does everybody know about this amazing website?

http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~tas3/bachindex.html

(I'm sure it's been posted here before, in fact that's probably where I got it.)

It provides very ingenious visuals that analyze the Bach fugues and canons as they're being performed. And the performances are excellent in their own right.

[ryanyee]

hey! well so far, glenn gould's the best exponent of bach i've ever heard of. by the way, does anybody  know about bach's concerto in d minor after alessandro marcello? i'm  currently practising this piece but there's just 1 problem. my teacher can't seem to teach  me anything  at all. it's like i'm teaching myself the piece. too hard he said. is it really a hard piece?

[guendola]

i have all the recordings were Glenn Gould"The best pianist in the world" plays most of i compotisons.

You should actually listen to more than just one pianist. Glenn Gould is one of the few that "dared" to add some substantial expression to Bach and some people hate him for that. But there are many more good ways to play Bach (I mentioned Jack Gibbons earlier in this thread). Bachs music is very substantial music that preserves its nature even under very bad conditions. And under good conditions it is fantastic!

[slobone]

You should actually listen to more than just one pianist. Glenn Gould is one of the few that "dared" to add some substantial expression to Bach and some people hate him for that. But there are many more good ways to play Bach (I mentioned Jack Gibbons earlier in this thread). Bachs music is very substantial music that preserves its nature even under very bad conditions. And under good conditions it is fantastic!

Indeed, Bach has survived Wendy Carlos, the Swingle Singers (whom I love BTW), and much more. Glenn Gould certainly didn't kill him off, though he tried his damnedest in an Oedipal sort of way. But way too many inexperienced pianists try to copy him, which annoys the hell out of me. Definitely listen to some other people too!

[guendola]

Ha, Swingle Singers are cool

I didn't know them yet, thanks for mentioning them!