Don’t be fooled by the music teaser. The subject of this blog becomes clearer as it progresses.
Sometimes words fail me when I try to describe the beauty of a great piece of music. I just want to play the composition and let it speak for itself. But being the eternal teacher of a truckload of students both in Fresno, of all places, and the Bay area, I can always rely on myself to deliver a long winded sermon about the composer and his intent. I’ll rattle off stuff that my pupils may be yawning through, just as my cat, Aiden, shared a big delicious one well after the conclusion of my Chopin Waltz in A minor. Most you tube viewers weren’t patient enough to watch the very last frame but it was definitely the all time audience grabber worth one of those America’s Funniest Home Video airings. See blog, “Aiden swoons over Chopin’s Waltz in A minor” with embedded music.
Back to the Bach Invention which is a dialog between two voices divided between the hands. The challenge is to flesh out both parts when needed, and not neglect one for the other.
The way I was taught piano, way back when John Thompson method books were the rage of the time, my teachers swore that middle C was the only note that existed on the keyboard. And to make matters worse, finger number 1 of the right hand, (the thumb) was assigned this same location for the first two years of study. Forget the black keys. There was a scourge of discrimination directed at these notes, so at least one or two generations of piano students learned to shun the black keys like the plague.
Flash forward to the enlightened 21st Century. Method book composers and publishers like Randall and Nancy Faber had advanced the clock, leaving the barbaric age of middle C behind, ushering in a whole new era of teaching strategies. And so my students and those of my colleagues had definitely benefited.
So how did I get away from the eclectic subject of Bach’s inventions, counterpoint, Baroque performance practices and the rest.
I guess I decided that this blog would be more catchy and popular if I titled it “Leaving the barbaric age of Middle C.”
And because everyone at some time or other had to have been enrolled in piano lessons, forced to take instruction by parents who felt this was just something they had to do, why not make the title of this blog, the real game changer.
Just to conclude, as we’ve thankfully, entered a new era of piano teaching, we’ve added Tae-Kwondo as a mandatory accompaniment to piano lessons. Students arrive in their Kwondo attire ready to tackle the keyboard, or take the bull by the horns. Oops, Fresno may be the Ag center of the universe but there’s always the Bay area to level the field, minus the grazing cows.
Putting the Bach Inventions aside for the moment, there’s just too many other things to write about, including the drop out rate among piano students who have too much on their plate to get serious about anything.
I think I’ll just learn another Bach composition for the moment and deliver myself a personal lecture about it while Aiden the cat is busy yawning in my face.
