Music of Bach, is that enough?

[krajcher]

Hello everyone!

I started playing piano again a year ago (after non-playing for 9 years). I love it and I love Bach.
My progress is quite good as yet, but I'm curious: is playing only music of Bach enough for technique and musicality? If not, do you know some music which improves technique better?

Thank everyone for any advice

Best wishes to all of you.

[p2u_]

Music of Bach, is that enough?

Es ist genug, (It is enough,)
Herr, wenn es dir gefällt, (Lord, when it pleases you)

You may want to add something to your diet by Haydn, Mozart, Scarlatti for a little variation?

Paul

[ajspiano]

OP wishes to play music that improves technique better than bach..?

OP would play music that is less appealing than bach for the sake of technique..?

this is backwards thinking.

And for the record, no, you can not play only one composer and expect to become a well rounded musician. You will only be able to play bach, and while that will help you on the path to enlightenment, there are other musical challenges to find and learn from. And while Bach will teach you an enormous amount, there is ofcourse things you may learn from other composers that you may not from bach..  if only because to learn it all from bach you will have to learn/relearn and relearn things again and again as you discover new elements, and really you should consider expanding your repetoire as you do this..

[49410enrique]

... I love Bach.
My progress is quite good as yet...

nuff said really. ride that pony till it dies/falls over dead.

that is, don't stop doing what is working well. you may want to consider as stated above sprinkling in some works from other practice periods ala  standard music school type rotation where you do some baroque, some classical, some romantic, late romantic/pre modern, impressionistic, modern/post romantic non impressionistic.


bach is a very good foundation to build on though, so as you add, don't take away from the bach you love . 

[brianvds]

I suppose it depends where one wants to go. The most difficult pieces in the sheet music list are all indicated as being at grade 8+ level, whether they are by Bach or Liszt or Rachmaninoff or Debussy. Still, I have a feeling Bach would have found it almost impossible to play a Debussy etude at sight (I actually can't be sure, but that's my guess).

Now considering that in Bach's time, nobody had even dreamed of the romantic or modern period's music, and were nevertheless perfectly happy and didn't feel they were missing out on anything, I guess one could argue that if you like everything up to the baroque but not much beyond, that it is perfectly legitimate to specialize in that kind of music and never bother with anything else. I suspect Bach's more difficult pieces will also equip one with a very substantial part of the technical requirements to play almost anything else.

Still, if you stick to Bach and his contemporaries to the exclusion of everyone else, and then one day decide you want to tackle Liszt's B minor sonata or Debussy's "Reflections on the water," you may well find that you need an extensive period of adjustment.

That, at least, is my guess. At this point my own technique doesn't extend much further than "Für Elise," so I am kind of speculating here... :-)

[j_menz]

Is playing only music of Bach enough for technique and musicality?

It is if all you ever want to play is Bach.  It is also a good grounding for many other works, though by no means sufficient.

Now, I like Bach as much as pretty much anyone, but there is a lot of other great music out there, and you would be doing yourself a great disservice by ignoring it.

[ajspiano]

Now, I like Bach as much as pretty much anyone

You probably like him significantly more than I do then..

[j_menz]

You probably like him significantly more than I do then..

I can offer only my profound sympathy, then.

[ajspiano]

I can offer only my profound sympathy, then.

..its not that i dislike him, its just that the suites for example..  I do not feel they are worth making a song and dance about.

..

boom tsss.

[j_menz]

..its not that i dislike him, its just that the suites for example..  I do not feel they are worth making a song and dance about.

..

boom tsss.

Gah!!! 

[tchaikovsky_lover]

Bach is extremely good for technique.  Although if you want more emotional songs or songs that you can really just dig into then you should try Mozart, Handel, and Tchaikovsky.  Romantic Period composers' songs have a lot of feeling into to them.  Baroque and classic period composers are more technical with the "don't rush", "play evenly", dynamics and what not.

[silverowl]

Hello,

I am new here, and also just started learning piano. I can't really offer any advice, but isn't studying only one composer like becoming proficient at only one aspect that has multiple forms? Martial arts, boxing, a certain position of any given sport? Would most of you say that to become a truly verastile and balanced pianist, it would be best to learn and play not only various classic composers, but also differnt genres of piano playing such as jazz, rock, sympony?

[pianoplunker]

Hello everyone!

I started playing piano again a year ago (after non-playing for 9 years). I love it and I love Bach.
My progress is quite good as yet, but I'm curious: is playing only music of Bach enough for technique and musicality? If not, do you know some music which improves technique better?

Thank everyone for any advice

Best wishes to all of you.

Glenn Gould made a living playing only Bach. Bach's music is so universally awesome I dont know how you could go wrong with it.  However, if you ever want to play something else you may want to practice something else. But having played Bach will help with other music . 

[grelhado]

Don't forget the most important on music: play what you like, play with plaisure

[littlepolaritons]

Sorry if this seem like a silly reply but it's the reason that I try to practice more than just Bach music.

I know that Bach is from the Baroque period and during that period they don't have piano yet, only harpsichord. The notes played from harpsichord could not really be sustained thus most people nowadays who play Bach music will play the crotchets or quavers slightly detached to have the 'harpsichord' feel. And that is how I played all my Bach pieces so far. Because this is only one particular style of playing, I would like to learn more of other playing styles, for example pieces that are more legato and sentimental like the Romantic era music.

[krajcher]

Sorry if this seem like a silly reply but it's the reason that I try to practice more than just Bach music.

I know that Bach is from the Baroque period and during that period they don't have piano yet, only harpsichord. The notes played from harpsichord could not really be sustained thus most people nowadays who play Bach music will play the crotchets or quavers slightly detached to have the 'harpsichord' feel. And that is how I played all my Bach pieces so far. Because this is only one particular style of playing, I would like to learn more of other playing styles, for example pieces that are more legato and sentimental like the Romantic era music.

Look on some recordings of pianists who play Bach and you will see that his music is interpreted variously, also in sentimental way.