Randall and Nancy Faber come through with flying colors by including J.C. Bach’s Prelude in A minor in their Developing Artist Series Album, Early Intermediate Level.
(Playing the Haddorff piano with its honey-dipped tone)
This particular composition, sounding Baroque, but written in the Classical era, gives a student the opportunity to shape a musical line through a series of broken chords. As a preliminary, the player can block the sonorities and follow the harmonic scheme and rhythm. The Harmonic minor shimmers through the texture in the opening measures as a progression from E to F to G# to A. (the fifth degree of this form of the A minor scale through to the tonic)
Shaping phrases involves attentive listening, a supple wrist, and harmonic consciousness.
In part B, the music blossoms into a series of secondary Dominants against sobbing, sighing pairs of descending seconds, before it returns to a familiar revisit with part of the opening A section.
Sustaining a melodic line through recurring broken pattern chords is paramount to playing the Prelude poetically and musically. Varying dynamics and tapering phrases are woven into the artistic process.
This the perfect example of how knowing the chords ahead of time basically “reads the music” for you. You refer to the numbers and notate some of the tonal chords above the staff. When I look at pieces like this, I write the chord above each one. In this case, Am, Dm, G+, etc. This piece is simple, but others are far more complex to read quickly. Having a chordal awareness lets one fully understand the structure of how the composition is written.
Thanks for your comment. Knowledge of chord progressions aids in interpretation, because the harmonic rhythm gives insight into phrase shaping. Resolutions of chords and dissonances through pedal points are part of the affective dimension of the Prelude. Cognitive knowing (naming chords) and the affective fuse together along with the kinetic side of playing (physical) Keeping the wrist supple, and using varying weight transfers for “color” shifts are part of the whole learning process.